[Sca-cooks] Re: Feast stewart at the crossroads

[Phlip]

Ene bichizh ogsen baina shuu...

> Thank you. I don't know Los Angeles - I'm on the other coast... but here
> in the East I've seen people from rural areas who can't understand why
> our events in the New York City area cost more than theirs do. It's all
> put down to mismanagement on our parts, not rent that's three or four
> times as high, higher food costs, etc.

I have to agree. I _AM_ from a rural area, and the price differential
between here in the EK and my beloved rural Ohio is very large- never mind,
the lack of networks I have here.

In Ohio, for example, if I needed a beast for a feast, I could go buy one
and butcher it myself- and I did, an entire veal calf, for Iasmine's
Coronation feast a couple years ago, thus saving her considerably on that
aspect of the feast. Recently, I've discovered where I can buy pigs and
lambs on the hoof, but I still don't know where I can find cow or veal- but
I'm working on it. And, I might not go that route if I had the opportunity-
one factor that must be weighed is convenience vs labor, regarding sheer
price. In the case of Iasmine's feast, she had me to take care of the calf-
in my own feast, my time might well be better spent elsewhere. These city
folks just don't know how to butcher, unlike the country folks I was dealing
with.  (If Rob and Margali were available, I could ask them- but Rob is a
squid first- the Navy wouldn't understand that I needed him to help with my
feast).

And prices here ARE much higher than I'm used to. Rob and Margali's home (2
br house, 3 story barn, 2.75 acres) is appraised at over $130,000- in my
area of Ohio, it would go for maybe $40,000. Our rent, for the little mall
kiosk that I'm working out of, is $2700 per month- and people want us to
sell them watch batteries for $2.00. NOT- we couldn't stay in business. The
cost of living is just higher here. Site fee and feast fee for the feast I
cooked in February was roughly $26, which was paid by everyone, including
me, even though, after cooking the stuff, I never wanted to look at it
again... and, most of that was site fee- I think we made less than $100
profit, even though I was under budget. If 4 fewer people had attended, we'd
have lost money.

I had a similar problem to Selene's too, although I was prepared, when I
cooked as Avraham's drop-dead deputy, taking over the feast when his new job
meant he couldn't do the full feast. The previous Head Cook, Pat, had warned
us that the autocrats couldn't count, and that when they said a feast for
60, somehow it would expand to 75, so I planned for it- I whooped and
hollered and complained and told them no more than 70 under ANY
circumstances- and simply planned for 80 ;-) As usual, they over sold (78, I
think), and I grumped and bitched and fed everybody, as I had planned.

Sometimes, you just gotta do what it takes, but that doesn't mean you need
to take whatever they try to pull on you.

Phlip

 If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it is probably not a
cat.

Never a horse that cain't be rode,
And never a rider who cain't be throwed....