[Sca-cooks] Cost of feast

[Laura C. Minnick]

At 04:18 PM 11/12/02 -0600, you wrote:
>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
<snip>
>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.

This is pretty consistent with what I have seen also. Events I've cratted
we usually budgeted about $5 each for the food, and charged $7-8 for the
meal. Profit was usually slim, as there always ends up being last minute
stuff, be it food price foo or equipment problems.

Now- having been reading this thread (and deleting most, I will admit) I
have something to say. So here goes.

I believe that the original complaint had more to do with expectations than
anything else. When someone advertises a 'feast', it damn well better be a
feast! If it was an acceptable serving of dinner is immaterial- it was not
what we expect when we hear the word feast. If someone invites you to
dinner in their home, what would you think if they pulled a packaged dinner
out of the microwave, zapped it, and handed it to you with a plastic fork?
You were expecting a a nice dinner as a guest, not the bare minimum- and
the presentation is not up to snuff either!

Around here, expectations are that a feast running $8 will have 3 courses
of two or three dishes each, with bread and fruit and such for appetizers,
and some sort of dessert course. This is pretty average. Any cook who
served up the dinner described earlier would have been hung out to dry in
the de-brief, and you can bet they would never get a feast bid again.

When I go to a feast, I expect a feast. If only a light dinner is being
served, then call it such.

'Lainie
slowly moving about but still cranky
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