[Sca-cooks] Looking for further info on the Feast of Unicorn last November.

[kattratt]

Thought I would reply to this here on list...
Sigh boy was that an exhausting nap... ;)
Nope actually it seems that I forgot to actually report what I learned 
after my first feast.  Sigh sorry folks it has been a rough year, the 
good news is that things are looking up now.  

My report from my first official SCA feast.  
Feast of the Unicorn was the Event.  
The site was Camp Fellowship located on Lake Greenwood SC.  
Head Cook was Lord Nichola Buscelli.
Assistant Cooks were Lady Anastasia Bellasare`, Katrina d'Henge, Lord 
Bruno, Lord William, There were 2 others but I can not remember their 
names... it has been to long sorry.  If someone can fill those in I 
would appreciate it.

(Master John if you can give your Duchess Simone's son's name I would 
appreciate it.  Also there was someone working on pastries whose name I 
cannot remember.. if someone can fill in that blank it would be great.)


Now I gave the menu way back then and I cannot remember all of the 
details... but I will talk about what I learned.... THAT I still remember.

First off most of what I learned can be fixed in one simple statement... 
Make sure you have a kitchen if you are someone that insists upon 
"Wowing" people.  
I tried to pull off way to big of a feast for a field kitchen even with 
"Bruno's Magnificent Traveling Kitchen" tm.  
All of this is IF this is Your FIRST Feast and your First time using a 
field kitchen....

1) IF using a field kitchen for your kitchen then go ahead and set up in 
the covered area and don't worry about trying to use tents.  Chances are 
it will rain anyways.
2) Don't go overboard.  Don't try and do a four to six dish per course, 
four course feast without a kitchen.  You probably won't have enough 
dishes to serve the food with.
3) Watch your sauces... in a meat heavy dinner I had used all vinegar 
based sauces... since those were what was recommended in the recipes...
We used a Vinegar Sauce, Poivrade Noir, Beef in a Sauce Poivrade, 
Chicken in a Vinegar Sauce.   Now Me I like the vinegar sauces... but I 
can see how all of those could overwhelm an normal SCAdian feaster.   
Next time I think a sweet sauce or two.
4) Keep your cool
5) Pastries even when prepared ahead of time are probably not a good 
thing if you don't have counter space.  Which occurs when you do not 
have a kitchen.
6) Especially if they are cream filled pasteries.
7) Every thing needs to be timed out ahead of time.  
8) Which means every thing needs to planned planned planned.  
9) Which also means a run through of everything.... even if you don't 
think it needs a run through.   Do it anyways.  You will appreciate it 
in the end.
10) Chicken can be flash fried in a wok but will probably come out not 
done.  Ie Burnt on the outside and still underdone on the inside.  So 
start your chicken first thing when cooking your meats.
11) Rare beef is ok.
12) Folks are getting tired of duck.
13) If you are extremely careful you can serve allergy free shellfish.
14) AND Folks appreciate it.
15) Arrange for servers months ahead of time and lock them in a week 
before the event.
16) Double check everything ahead of time.
17) Locate the nearest stores before the event occurs.
18) AND THIS IS IMPORTANT...  Don't let the autocrat take breakfast or 
lunch out of your budget... (In this case breakfast...)   This can kill 
your promise to make shortcuts that will save money... since the money 
that you have saved is already gone before the event.  And was not due 
to you.
19) Never yell at your crew no matter what.  (Didn't happen just good 
advice...)
20) Always relax after you are done with the kitchen but make sure that 
you stick around so that everyone gets their stuff back.  Someone else 
can clean up but you have to stay to ensure that everyone gets what is 
important to them back to them... knives, pots, bowls etc....

Ok That is my first list
This time it won't take a year for me to follow up.
Nichola


Stefan li Rous wrote:

>>
> And down near the end of the original message he says:
>
>> I will report what I learned tomorrow.... (Trust me there was a lot  
>> learned...)
>>
>
> But I don't see any further report in my files, nor in the next two  
> months which I checked in the SCA-Cooks archives.