[Sca-cooks] menus, seat allocation

[P. A. Stonnell]

At 01:10 AM 12/11/02 -0600, you wrote:
>Isobel fitz Gilbert commented:
>> In our Barony, each person at the banquet gets a menue with ingredients.
>> It also has their name on it and is used to identify their seat (seatting
>> at the Baronial Banquet is arranged, not a free-for-all).  It's been that
>> way for years.
>Ooooh! I *like* this idea.
>
>For several years, for our large indoor feast event Candlemas, we've
>been having folks sign up for their tables during the day to avoid
>the mad, cattleherd stampede for the tables at feast time. Particularly
>good for folks like myself, who aren't part of a household and thus
>don't have several people to grab and defend a table.
>
>But we've simply been putting putting names on diagrams of the tables.

We have the diagram at the door too.

>
>(You can't reserve for folks who haven't signed in at gate yet). I
>like your idea.
>
>THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
>    Mark S. Harris            Austin, Texas
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
>**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****
>

Not my idea, we have been doing it this way since before I started cooking
in the SCA.
Also, our November Baronial Banquet is all presold.  Ticket sales end
before the big
day (this year the feast is on the 30th, ticket sales end the 21st).  This
way the
cooks know how many to be cooking for.  When you buy your ticket, you have
the option
of requesting to be seated near your friends if you wish.  I always, when I
am out
front, seated and not in the kitchen, make a point of requesting to be
seated with
some one new, so I can meet more people, and help if there are real
newcomers at my
table.

Of course, Baronial Banquet is the event, not a feast after a tourney.  The
hall is opened
to the populous at noon for dancing and socializing, seating starts about
5-5:30 and the
food is served later, from about 6:30 to 9:30.  4 courses, with breaks
between each and
a long break between the 2nd and 3rd to allow people to move around and
talk.  Followed
by a court.  I missed court last year, last item in the 4th course was
apple fritters, and
we just kept frying those suckers and sending them out, a table's worth at
a time.  I may
never do that again but it was popular, even if we did have people coming
to the door of
the kitchen to ask where their table's fritters where.

Isobel fitz Gilbert

ps Stefan, your files were of great help when I was first made Head Cook.
Lots of good
ideas.