[Sca-cooks] Hellooooo......

[Jadwiga Zajaczkowa / Jenne Heise]

> Sometimes, I have heard of cooks putting together a menu and don't consider
> how much can be afforded by their group. Sometimes cooks get tunnel vision
> and think that the feast is the main attraction. I have heard several of
> incidents that have caused non cooks to bulk with funds towards feast.
> Sadly, these incidents can cause the next cook to have to fight tooth and
> nail for items.

I've been on both sides of the discussion-- we had a local cook who felt
it was demeaning to be asked to provide a feast bid, even a menu, before
the event. Of course, when she autocratted (or even when she didn't),
she never hesitated to interfere with the people doing the cooking, or 
requesting and niggling over bids with budgets and all. I'm sure she 
didn't mean to, but boy was she a dampening influence at one time. I 
am told she is better now.

The local group where I was cooking recently had one of those too, a guy 
who dictated to the feast cooks except when he was the one cooking. I 
had met him outside the group and was completely thrown the first time 
I met him in a kitchen, where he did things like walk into the kitchen 
45 minutes before feast with 3 full trash cans and try to leave them 
there, because 'he didn't have anyplace else to put them.' 

This kind of nonsense leads to endless power struggles between cooks and 
autocrats. The only thing I've been able to do when I'm the cook is to 
be relatively calm, document everything I want to do, get support for 
it, and be firm. But it took several strategic and tearful withdrawals 
from doing doomed events before people found that I was serious. Now 
they listen, though sometimes I have to cry first. :)  
 
-- 
-- Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, Knowledge Pika jenne at fiedlerfamily.net 
"America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, on 
imagination and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand." 
	-- Harry S. Truman