[Sca-cooks] Red Tower 30/training for event food service [long]

[Christine Seelye-King]

>  Christine Seelye-King wrote:
> Getting ready for my class to graduate. I started teaching classes in
February, training folks to do food service at events, basically.
To which Bonne responded:
> a 6 month training program in serving?  I'd like to hear more about this.
> Bonne

	Ok, now that the event is over, I can answer this.  I didn't mean it to
sound like an intensive 6-month course.  I taught 3 classes over the course
of 3 months to basically the same group of people each time at our Baronial
class nights, and I also taught the 3-hour version of the class at our Royal
University in July.  Starting in June, we put together the staff and held
our first staff meeting, held our second in late July, and had our pre-feast
in late August.  I also set up a Yahoogroups list just for the 10 or so
folks that were on the staff list.  That was a big help, it made for easier
dissemination of information, and cut down on the need for phone calls and
additional meetings.  I was the one in ultimate authority, but I had a
specific person in charge of each meal.  I tried very hard to get clean-up
folks with limited success, so I required each of them to not only come up
with their own helpers, but at least one designated clean-up person for each
of their meals.  I was the central clearing-house for menus, budgets and
money allocation, did the main organization of the kitchen and marshalling
of our resources (and stomped out the fires - not literal ones, but several
equipment problems and the usual run-of-the-mill unexpected challenges).  We
were glad to have Muirdach show up and help make bread and other fun stuff
in the kitchen, and were sorry he couldn't stay and eat the fruits of his
labors.  They were delicious rastons, by the way.  :)
	All in all, it was a rousing success.  We had 345 people at the event, and
served about 100 Friday night, 175 or so Saturday breakfast (a
middle-eastern theme, really good, and got several comments to the effect
that it was the best breakfast ever had at an event), 250 or so at the
Dayboard, 150 for the Feast of the Treasures, and 125 or so for Sunday
Breakfast.  Oh, and I did lunch for about 12 staff folks on Friday.
	All the time I was teaching and working with these folks, I was also
writing the Feast Planner's Handbook, and modifying it as I went along and
saw the practical applications and how they worked or needed tweaking.  An
interesting experience for me, as I found myself comparing my performance to
the book, and found myself wanting in a couple of areas (small ones, but
still, having to hold yourself to your own printed standards is an
interesting exercise!)
	What is left to do is gather reciepts and do the final numbers (we know we
were under budget and profitable, but not by how much), and the thank-you's.
Unfortunately, I thought I had all week to do this and take care of other
mundane stuff, but the surgery I had scheduled for Friday has been moved up
to tomorow morning.  So, it will be a bit tough, but we'll work it out.
	We had gorgeous menu posters printed up for the entire weekend's food
events, and one for each individual meal as well, which were posted in the
appropriate areas.  I did menus on single double-sided half sheets for the
tables for feast and did 24-page recipe books for those that asked.  We have
that all electronically, so I can send that to anyone that wants it.  Keep
in mind that I won't be able to sit at my computer for a week or more after
tomorow, so write me privately at: kingstaste at mindspring.com if you want
one, but be prepared to wait for a while before I can send it.  Or, you can
write to my grandaughter protege who did the main feast and the printing,
and she can send it to you, her name is Lady Morfydd, and her address is
trillain42 at aol.com.  Ask for the Red Tower 30 Recipe Book.
	We did several fun things at the feast.  The hall was very nicely decorated
with haning banners and free-standing banner poles, made because of a site
restriction on taping anything to the walls.  We had a free-standing
backdrop/drape that hid the ugly part of the hall including the restrooms,
serving line, photos of the camp owners and such.  We staged the service
from behind that area, which was wonderful.  We had several Banquet
Officers, I was the Cuisinier and Expediter, Lady Morfydd was the Viander,
my protege (and Serene's husband) Lord Roget was the Major Domo (in charge
of servers), and we had Butlers for beverages, a Carver (me) for the breads,
a Laverer with hot washcloths for handwashing, and last but not least, a
Seargeant of the Scullery who was in charge of the dishwasher and
after-feast clean-up, assisted by the Head Scullion who gathered clean-up
volunteers and oversaw the final mucking-out Saturday night.  Roget looked
every bit the French Maitre'd, down to the huge pepper grinder he and our
Baron made for him to wield.   We went to some trouble to make every dish
beautiful and attractively presented, and got lots of comments on that
aspect.
	It was our 30th anniversary, so the event had a pearl theme, and the feast
was the Feast of the Treasures.  We had shells to put on the table with salt
and peppercorns in them (valuable treasure!) and I had been collecting
jewelry, buttons, repro-period coins, and all sorts of fun stuff, and we had
a Coquille St.Jaques-type shell filled with treasure on each table, which
was a big hit.  Some of my shells didn't come back, so I'm going to have to
see if I can track them down, a hazard of using personal serving vessels on
the tables.  The food was all wonderful, the only hitch was that she
expected her ovens to function perfectly, which they didn't, and dinner was
delayed an hour and 20 minutes because of it.  Court ran over for 45 minutes
of that, so it wasn't much of a crisis, and the dayboard had been serving
until 4 PM, so I knew no one was starving.  :)  We did ultimately end up
with enough people to help clean up both Saturday night and Sunday morning,
so my aungst and consistant reminding that this was were help was needed
paid off.  (Whew!)
	All in all, it has been a very rewarding experience, although it wasn't
much less work than if I had been actually cooking the feast by myself.  And
my timetable for getting my personal affairs and event tie-up has been
screwed by the doctor's office, which has me reeling just now, but I'll get
it covered, I just won't sleep tonight (heck, I'll be doing a lot of that
for the next week or so). Anyone that has a free minute to send positive
thoughts my way tomorow AM, I would surely appreciate it.
	I'll be signing off for a bit until I'm able to sit and keep up with this
list again.  If you want to reach me, it might be best to write to my lord
Baron Damon Fox, at his email: deadtongue at hotmail.com.  He can also take
your requests for the "Feast Planner's Handbook" and get them mailed out.
	Thanks again to the list for being here, providing fonts of knowledge and
on-line sources, and for providing a sounding-board for ideas and questions.
I hope to be back soon, keep me in your thoughts and prayers until then,
Christianna