[Sca-cooks] Should I be doing this?

[david friedman]

Vicente wrote:

...
>Later on it hit me: we're going to have an infant child on our hands.
>Preparing a feast is a pretty big commitment.  Am I taking on too much?
>I've arranged what looks to be a relatively simple menu: plates of nibbles
>and dips, bread, fruit, three braised dishes (chicken, beef and lamb) served
>with rice and couscous, a couple of vegetable dishes, and dessert.  My
>Laurel (the other Master A) has volunteered to be my 'drop-dead' for this.
>If for some reason I can't follow through, he'll take over for me.
>
>This is our first baby.  I have no direct experience of how much time this
>kid is going to take.  Should I even be trying this? Am I making myself an
>early candidate for baldness and the galumphing hangnails?  Or should I damn
>the torpedoes and start shopping?

Several people have answered this, but another won't hurt. I haven't
done this with a kid that young, but have with a toddler. I remember
sitting on the floor, with my large, experienced serving crew
bustling about getting the food dished onto platters and out to the
tables, feeding my daughter bits of the lamb with my fingers because
I was too exhausted to do anything more organized about getting her
and me fed.

Unless you have reason to suspect medical problems, there is no
reason not to do this, but you should make more complete back-up
plans than usual, and you should make them now. There will be a
period of a few weeks following the birth (which may or may not
happen exactly to schedule) when neither of the two of you will be
good for much, unless you do well on very little sleep; don't plan
any pre-cooks, recipe-working-out, final decision-making, etc., for
that period. The more you can do now, not only in terms of what's
going to happen but also who's going to do it, the less unexpected
stuff will get dumped on you when you are too busy to deal with it.
As my memory above suggests, have people you can trust to do stuff
without you overseeing--once I gave my serving crew the food, they
could take it from there.

Have some people lined up to help with the baby--at four months, most
kids aren't shy of strangers, but it helps if they know the baby.
Expect your wife to have considerably less stamina than she normally
does.

Good luck, have fun.

Elizabeth of Dendermonde/Betty Cook