[Sca-cooks] Cost of feast

[Decker, Terry D.]

I don't know why you aren't turning a profit on your feasts, I do.  Granted,
it may not be much of a profit, but I don't lose money on a feast.

Locally, $8 for a feast is a little excessive.  I can get away with charging
$7 tops.  The actual cost will be between $3.50 and $5 per person.  The
difference is the cushion that covers sudden rises in prices, comps, gate
crashers, and the odd emergency expense.  The actual profits have run from
$1.85 (competing event, heavy rain and flooding to the south) to $450
(something of an embarrassment, all the prices dropped after the feast was
published, but before I bought the food).

I often spend a small part of the feast budget to upgrade equipment and lay
in inedible supplies, but there is no continuity to the process and by the
time I get back to doing a feast, the equipment hav very often gone
walkabout.

I've come to the opinion that a good feast is more about planning and
logistics, than it is about good cooking.  I actually had one fellow give me
a bottle of metheglin, because his food arrived hot and edible.

Bear

> A good cook can do miracles with not much money, and we
> aren't after making
> a profit on feast (why is that, by the way?  what's wrong with small
> profits invested in building a collection of serving plates, utensils,
> etc?  But that's another question...).
>
> Still, I think that if people attending feast were open to
> pay a little bit
> more, the quality of feasts in general would have a chance to
> grow tenfolds.
>
> Gorgeous Muiredach the Odd