[Sca-cooks] Performer's Symposium Feast Post mortem

[Kerri Martinsen]

Well, It's over.

My back and feet are killing me, but I'm happy.  And I'll do it again
sometime, just not in the next 6 months.

Here was the menu:
Lunch:
Pork and Beef summer sausage
Baguettes
Apples
Hard boiled eggs
Cheese
Pickles

Dinner: 1st Remove
German Beer Bread   **
Mushroom Cheese Tarts   *
Chicken Soup    (Vegetarian option will be made available if notified)
Cheese ­ variety of fresh cheeses   *

2nd Remove
White Bread *
Pork roast w/ Galantine sauce (a)
Roasted onions **
Isfidhabaya:  Lamb simmered with almonds & spices (n)
Honey Carrots   *
Cabbage Salad   **

3rd Remove
Apple Turten *
Dulcia Domestica :  Stuffed Dates (a)(n) *


Here is how it went down:

Before the event -
Thursday after work: I made pastry crust for the mushrooms
Friday:  took the day off and went grocery shopping.
         Dropped off gear and groceries at the site
        Dropped off carrots and butter to be magically prepped into carrot
coins and honey/herb/whipped butter.
        Made pastry for apple turtens and made bread for the first remove to
be baked on site.  Got to bed around 3 am.  Daughter woke up at 3:30am.
Tried to sleep.

Saturday:  Started work in the kitchen at 9:30am
had a babysitter for the day for my daughter (Thank you thank you thank you)
Began day by setting up kitchen help kneading bread - 20 loaves for first
remove.
Discovered that the pizza pans wouldn't fit in the ovens.  Searched kitchen
for anything that would survive in the ovens to replace them.  Found enough
(whew!)
Lots of other prep cooking ensued.  Can't really remember when and what
anymore.
Bread started going in the oven around 11am and the ovens were continuously
in use after that.
4:00pm - began rolling out pastry for the mushroom tarts.
    **This I would change and have done earlier in the afternoon so that we
only had to fill the cut rounds at 4pm.
5:15pm - pork roasts came out of the ovens, mushroom tarts went in.
6:00pm - feast was served.  (originally scheduled for 5:45, but court ran
long.


Things that went right:
- all the kitchen help
- all the items made before day of (pastry, cutting carrots, making butter,
making first batch of bread)
- having 2 recipe booklets in plastic binders in the kitchen to refer to
(thank you cooks list!!)
- having a dedicated runner available to go buy what I forgot to get or ran
out of.
- having an EXTREMELY good cook as my Head Cook - Could not have done it
without Eadric.
- Having a wash up station for feast gear for after the feast
- having plastic bags available for people to take home feast gear in.
- the clean up crew.  THANK YOU for cleaning the yucky pans and ovens.


Things I would do different/ notes:
- check pan size vs. oven size before day of feast
- learn how to hard boil eggs (whoops.)
- watch portions for lunch better less waste- better to have to cut more
sausage as people come through the line then have to throw away meat.
- when serving apples at lunch, assume that only 1/2 to 3/4 of the people
will take one.  I had LOTS of apples left over.
- cut out pastry earlier in the day then refrigerate until needed.
- ask autocrate/troll if there was a wait list for feast around 4pm.  We had
enough food for more people, and I think there was room in the hall.
- have a head server lined up ahead of time to handle all the details.  It
went ok, but was a bit harried.  Talk to this person BEFORE day of feast to
make sure you have proper serving dishes.
- have water / lemonade/ hot cider jugs ready to put on table as soon as
feast tables are set up
- have dessert cooked earlier in the day.  Apple pie will hold until the end
of the day.  Maybe warm them up before they are served, but we have people
packing up gear before all the apple tarts could be sent out.
- we made 15 gallons of chicken soup (8 birds).  Had 9 gallons left over.
Fortunately, it was frozen and will be used at Bloodbath.  Yummy soup, just
too much.  Still can't figure why we were so far off on that one.

That about covers it.  If anyone was there and has any other comments,
please let me know - either on or off the list.  I think I looked worse than
I felt that day, but going on 3 hours of sleep will do that to you. (I was
also recovering from a cold and badly needed a haircut).


Vitha

--
Lady Hrosvitha von Celle
Per pale sable and gules, a fret and on a point pointed argent a pair of
shears inverted sable.



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