[Sca-cooks] 14th Century French Feast in January

Gretchen Beck grm at andrew.cmu.edu
Mon Dec 7 07:37:57 PST 2009



--On Monday, December 07, 2009 5:20 AM -0800 HL Bebhinn O'Siodhachain
<hlbebhinn at yahoo.com> wrote:

>  My biggest problem is planning and timing.  Any tips??

Congratulations, your excellency!

You've probably got lots of tips by now, but here's a big one:

Make a timeline and a chart.

Calculations: I've got X number of ovens, and Y dishes that need ovens for
Z amount of time.

I've got X stovetop burners, Y dishes that need a burner (remember, for big
commercial sized pots on commercial stovetops, I find no more than 2 pots
for 4 burners works. Note, though, you can stretch a large roasting pan
across 2 burners to make a supersized frying pan)

I've got X pots, and Y dishes that need to be made in each size pot.

I've got X outlets that I can use at any one time, and Y implements that
need to be plugged into the outlets and turned on.

I can prep/want to prep X things beforehand, and want to do Y things
onsite. (I'll admit, I like to do as much as possible onsite, but not doing
so can be the difference between a disaster and a success).

Hint two (and one I've learned the hard way) -- put your number one
organized helper in charge of plating and serving. This will let you
concentrate on getting stuff out of the kitchen to them, rather than having
to worry about these two things at once.  Oh, and make sure they have a
plan/schedule too and that you've both reviewed it before you start serving
(before the "get it done, get it out" rush starts)

Hope this helps!  Good luck, I'm sure all will go well!

toodles, margaret




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