[Sca-cooks] Cook's Symposium 2004 - Ideas to Comment On

[iasmin at comcast.net]

Greetings!
One of the things we try to do each year when we host the Cook's Symposium we host in our area is to offer up a little something different each time for people. Right now we're toying with a few ideas that we'd like to get your opinions on to see if they seem feasible or even wanted.
Lending Library - We've found that finding and sharing sources on various cooking topics presents a real challenge to the beginning cook. To make information more readily available to our researching brethren, we're toying with the idea of making a number of texts available near a photocopier so that people can copy the relevant sections they need to complete the research they're most interested in. Some of the sources may be books, others papers we've collected over the years, and some may be feast write-ups that we've found particularly useful. Would you find this kind of availability of information useful?
Spice/Herb/Supply Delivery - Because not everyone can get to Pennsic, we're also toying with the idea of taking Pennsic pre-orders for those spices that they Pepperer's Guild sells. The idea would be for us to take prepayment on those items you need and have us do the shopping for you at Pennsic because you can't make it. We'd then have those pre-paid orders available at the Cook's Symposium for you to pick up. We could also make available a limited supply of other items from the stores we have available to us. Things like dried herbs, candied seeds, rose water, orange flower water, verijus, and like items could all be considered. We even know of some commercially availabel marzipan if people would be interested. If we were to consider this pre-paid delivery service, what would you be most interested in? Would you find it useful?
Road Trips/Guided Tours - In the middle of winter, the idea of further road travel might be a little daunting. But there are a few local businesses to the event site that might be of use to cooks and researchers. Would you be interested in leaving the site to see these places or do you typically spend most of your time on site?
Please let us know your opinions on these ideas. We want to make the Cook's Symposium the best one to date.
Iasmin
Iasmin de Cordoba, Baroness Roaring Wastes, Middle Kingdom
Class Coordinator, Cook's Symposium 2004
http://home.comcast.net/~iasmin/2004cooks/