[Sca-cooks] Grand Tournament of the Unicorn Feast Review - Long Post

[Antonia Calvo]

Avelyn Grene wrote:

>Clean up:
>This was atrocious.  Generally people volunteer to help clean up after 
>events.  Not at this one.  
>

I find it's helpful to sign people up for cleanup beforehand and/or have 
a Herald "remind" people that help is needed in the kitchen.

>-Minor kitchen help issues, at least with one person, who happened to be 
>in charge of the cabin since Doc was doing the royalty lunch.  
>Ultimately she did a good job, but she seemed to drop the ball a bit in 
>a few places. 
>  
>

Inexperience?  Too many responsibilities? 

>Outside factors that affected feast:
> -A number of things were left at the cabin, and had to be fetched.  The 
>hazards of working out of multiple places, and people overlooking 
>things...  while I understand these things will happen, there were 
>multiple trips made back to the cabin to retrieve items.  It was 
>frustrating.  Especially since my staff should have been plating instead 
>of searching for things.
>  
>
I think it's a good idea to schedule a "missing items" run during the 
course of the feast. 

We're very organised and do mental walkthroughs of everything when 
getting the equipment together, but there's usually still one thing or 
another left behind. 


>-Court being pushed back half an hour, and my not being informed of 
>it. Had I known,  I would have brought hot food from the catering 
>kitchen over later.  This way my sternos on my chafers would not be 
>going out when feast started.
>  
>

May I recommend developing a very fearsome reputation :-) 
(I don't know how I did this.  I'm hard to really rile and rarely even 
raise my voice.  But there is no dessert for naughty Kings who come late 
to dinner.)

>-It took forever for people to get settled in.  I had planned on feast 
>beg ginning around 6:30-6:45.  It started at 7:45.  It ended at 9:15.
>  
>
See above.  Get people onto the idea that when you say that the feast 
will be served at 6:30, the food will be on the table at 6:30.

>-Troll did not have a sign up sheet for feast.  This resulted in 
>confusion over how many seats had been sold.  After counting, they were 
>a few under, and decided not to sell it out or create a waiting list.  
>Ultimately they did not sell 7 seats (I planned for 80 seats).
>  
>
Can't suggest much that you can do as an individual.  Southron Gaard has 
made advance bookings pretty much compulsory for all feasts, so we 
always know how many to expect.

>-Four servers did not show up.  So, when servers needed organized to put 
>the first course on the tables, my hall steward was frantically looking 
>for more servers.
>  
>
That's a damn nuisance, but it's also something that begins to resolve 
itself as you build rapport with the available people.
(I've got it down to the point where, when I failed to organise servers 
for a big feast, I got the Hall steward and told him "Go find one of the 
[usual gang of] idiots and get them to round up enough of the other 
idiots to serve. :-)  )

>-Our feast hall is underneith a campus dining hall, and they graciously 
>supply our water for the event for fighters and for feast.   The dining 
>hall employees leave and lock up at 8pm, which means we can't get water 
>after 8.  Since feast started at 7:45 this was a bit of an issue. We 
>filled the containers (2 5gal jugs) before they closed, but ended up 
>having to ration drinks toward the end (We did not completely run out 
>though!).  We were also lacking easy access to more water for dish washing.
>  
>

Find a better solution for that.  Seriously.  No access to water is not 
just inconvenient, but when you're cooking, it's a bit of a health hazard. 



-- 
Antonia Calvo 
(formerly known as Adele de Maisieres)

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Habeo metrum - musicamque,
hominem meam. Expectat alium quid?
-Georgeus Gershwinus
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