[Sca-cooks] Number of feasts

[Pat]

The Shire of Thorngill is located in Meridies.  Mundanely in the Montgomery, AL, area.  We are very small, with about four extended families and a few singletons making up the active core.  We host two events a year.  Both are weekend camping events, usually with traveler's fare on Friday night, breakfast Saturday morn, and Feast Saturday night included in the site fee which is generally between $15 and $20 US.  
We have so many cooks that we've got the events scheduled out two years in advance.  I'm scheduled to cook one in the fall of 2006.  
I've been told to plan for around 80 people.  I've been to four of these in the last two years, and cooked breakfast for one, and I don't believe I've ever seen that many people in attendance, much less eating.  Unfortunately the timing on both events is bad, with one being the weekend of the Alabama-Auburn football game, and the other opposite a larger event in another part of the Kingdom.  Christianna attended and taught classes at our most recent one, and I believe that she helped bring in some outsiders who would not have attended otherwise.  
The kitchen at the site we use sucks to put it politely.  There are two residential electric stoves with four burners and an oven each.  Every burner and each oven has its little idiosyncracies, varying from not working at all, working part time, or working full time at full blast only.  These are second hand donations, at least decades old.  There is also an electric grill top, that works quite well, once one has spent the day before cleaning it.  There is no air conditioning.  There is an attic fan, which works well, when it works.  
The site consists of an old farmhouse where the kitchen is, and an old barn, about 20 yards away, where the feast hall is.  The floor sags, and there are various and sundry electrical problems.  If you bring an electric roaster to use, don't count on the refrigerator working while the roaster is plugged up.  
There are two commercial refrigerators, one of which can be set to freezer temperatures, I believe.  There is a huge inventory of serving and prep dishes and utensils available, but the site is in a wooded area and not completely vermin proof, so it is best to bring your own.  When I cooked breakfast there in July, the temperature in the kitchen probably exceeded 100 degrees F with nearly 100 per cent humidity by 9:00 AM.  The problem with the attic fan was fixed later that morning, so that the feast prep was slightly, though not markedly, cooler.  The garb I was wearing in the kitchen on Saturday morning was still wet when I washed clothes at home on Monday afternoon.  Yet when I declare that I would prefer to cook outdoors with primitive methods, the other members of the Shire treat me like I'm crazy.  


Pat Griffin
Lady Anne du Bosc
known as Mordonna the Cook
Shire of Thorngill, Meridies
Mundanely, Millbrook, AL