Amongst the many goods that have come back over the Vanfrost from Norlund these trading cards were found. It sure is fun to learn! Maybe some of this information will be vital in a couple weeks?
Remember all the information about getting your Saurian Steed for the Echoes of Ragnorok conclusion event can be found here: A Guide to Theropod Capture and Domestication
Friday night:
-The Adventurers (that’s you) are looking for information in a book on how they can either break the Gloom Father (aka Morpheus or Dream) free or make sure he stays chained. The book is in a well-guarded maze. Better to be quiet and not alert the sentries, or worse, the stationary guards. Being loud will have consequences.
-Danica is an angel who happens to be trapped in a wand around Margaret’s belt, because Margaret’s wish for a wand of light was twisted by a Fae Trickster. Margaret is leading a rescue mission into absolute darkness to find Danica and get her out. Expect limited, if any light, and foes that are stronger in the dark. Souls may be lost in this perilous rescue mission. Those interested in helping, but not putting themselves in harm's way, may guard the tethers leading others into the wand.
Saturday:
-Robin, the Fae Trickster, is holding a party for his Lord (previously known as the Lord of Change). Expect unorthodox tournaments, side quests, surprise guests, and perhaps some zaniness. It also seems that some Dreams and Nightmares may have escaped through the portal last summer. How might they manifest and to what end? At least one of them has been asking about a dark mirror.
-At some point, adventurers will travel to a plane of destruction and madness to seek the power needed to free or secure the Gloom Father. Things there seem to fight a great deal, often about nothing. Was that an animal cry you just heard? Find the sound of chopping wood in order to make your way forward.
Saturday night:
-Control of Dreams and Nightmares has been less predictable with Soul Taker in charge. It seems that he may be experiencing an invasion of sorts. Help Soul Taker, depose him, or find another to run the show. Dreams, nightmares, and something else. And there’s the matter of making a choice about the Gloom Father. And what ever happened with the Lord of Change?
Sunday:
- Voices lost, swallowed at sea. Adventures consumed by spreading darkness. Who's rescue will it be? [More info to come soon, but you can expect a few hour long mini quest!]
If you are interested in getting a PLOT COOKIE (and an actual cookie) register for the event through RealmsNet by April 1st!
Today's WYM comes with two perspectives, at this event where the truth was at risk of being devoured.
"What You Missed at Sanctuary Questing 1"
by Kelly "Fern" Perfetto
I will try to keep this brief. A long time ago, beings known as Starlords created Devourers and Guardians to keep elements of creation and reality in check. The Guardians, hunted by their counterparts, created a refuge, Sanctuary. The Devourers still threaten the Guardians, Sanctuary, and reality. People from across the Realms have been working together within Sanctuary to plan against these threats. One Devourer in particular was hindering our efforts to learn more; the Devourer of Truth.
From here on I will refer to these beings as ‘Anti-’, because speaking their proper name can call their attention. On Sunday March 17, many people of the Realms embarked on a quest into the lands of the Fae Wilds to go after our chosen target, Anti-Truth.
We gathered in Sanctuary and set out into the Fae Wilds led by Odd. We came across some of the usual unusual denizens of the plane and some faces that would only be familiar to those of who had been active for more than ten years. After we fought back angry trolls and goblins, we came across aggressive flowers and even more aggressive Moth Riders, who had not been seen since before the worst of Bedlam. There was also a leprechaun. I have no idea what he was doing, but apparently do not mess with leprechauns. As I moved away from the people dancing at the Mayflowers and ducked and dodged assaults from the Moth Riders, we found the way had been cleared of boulders by some very determined party members.
Next we came across an area a little more clearly related to our quest. Strange mirrored doors blocked our only way forward. Golems or some similar constructs began attacking us, and party members who appeared corrupted turned their blades on the majority. Here we discovered we must lie to the mirrors to move through them, and beyond that, connect spell meanings in this soon-shattered mirror. We also found that some of our supposed friends had been constructs since we started in Sanctuary, including Odd. These false friends had been attacking and regenerating despite our best efforts to keep them down. Upon hitting them enough that most peoples’ souls would just give up, the bodies poofed into non-existence. I will note that we checked on all who were replicated as soon as possible, and each person is doing as well as they can be, given our line of work.
Anti-Truth seemed to be catching on to our encroachment in its domain, and sent strange mashed amalgamations in the images of our friends. We pushed them back… and found ourselves at a cocktail party. The food was safe to consume, as were the drinks, which I will say was a little disappointing. There was no alcohol to be found, and the other guests were dull. I still have no idea if this was an illusion or trick, or just a gathering we crashed. They did serve Fae Wild cave grapes though, which I found a liking for over the winter, and which were quite good.
Now, quite deep in Anti-Truth’s domain, it sent more adept fighters after us. These were meant to deceive us, claiming to be and enchanted to look like the former Servant of Anti-Truth who we were looking to free. They also kept insisting that they did not want to hurt us. I felt bad in the moment, but it turns out they had just been illusory constructs. Luckily we had gained a Circle of Truth that had been taken out of Sanctuary by the former Servant, Barton. We found this servant - the real one, we checked thoroughly - and broke his bonds to his former master. Twelve people, myself included, activated runes of the Guardians around Barton, and called the Guardians’ power in. While others stood guard, more people joined the twelve of us to channel strength and hope to this young man. We concluded with Tony and Saegan, two people aligned to Truth, speaking to Barton and lending him their strength and conviction of the Truth. With that, we felt the Guardians’ power and our own combine to sever the bonds Anti-Truth had placed on Barton.
Triumphant, we moved along… into some strange arena or colosseum, hosting a sports game none of us had ever seen before. Loud music from nowhere played around us, the opposition wore brightly colored matching shirts, and people with whistles kept yelling that we were playing the game wrong. Somehow with our weapons and three paths to the front, we got a ball way over there enough times that they let us go.
Next, an area of Truths and Dares. Mirrored beings would ask those who approached whether they would like to tell a truth or complete a dare. Those who chose truth were asked to reveal their greatest regrets, the most evil things they’ve done, and other deep truths. Those who chose dare had more of a mixed bag. Some people gave piggy-back rides, acted like animals hunting, or did some pushups. Others were given impossible dares, at which point the mirror constructs would call for consequences and statues around the room would attack all of us. The first time, it was so sudden that most of us were taken down within the minute and Hedda saved us all with a Cry of Life and Armor. It was unclear whether we were feeding Anti-Truth power with these truths, but most of us figured it would soon not matter. And indeed it did not. When we came across Anti-Truth, it lived up to my expectations set by a previous encounter. It was a sad, lonely thing which had constructed a world around itself. It was too proud to ask for help, too powerless to offer anything of substance to any of us, and yet still too dangerous to leave alive.
After taunts from both sides, and Vesper apparently stealing Anti-Truth’s crown and cape, Saegan called upon the power of Truth and its Guardian and defeated Anti-Truth in honorable combat. As the domain collapsed, we made our escape.
I will say I am impressed by what the questers of the Realms accomplished that day. It was not only the defeat of this reality warping being. Many new people showed up to help, and many more helped to guide them in turn. I hope to see these new faces again soon.
There are many more Anti-Guardians to face, but we now know it is possible to take them down.
"What You Missed: Sanctuary Questing"
by Alex "Adoros" Taylor
Sanctuary Questing 1 was the first official event, hopefully, in a long line of events told by this team. I first fell in love with the world this team developed after taking my trials as Adoros. I had hoped to support a friend who was just starting out and quickly learned that the depth of this plot was further reaching than I had expected. Over the last year Adoros has become deeply connected with Sanctuary and so chances to explore this plot at events is always a big moment.
Sanctuary Questing 1 started with a large force of heroes of the Realms meeting in Sanctuary to discuss the plan with the Elder of Truth - Annaleigh Lilac the Elder of Truth and chosen voice of the Guardian of Truth. She outlined that we would need to journey into Fae to follow the footsteps of the young Servant of the Devourer of Truth with hopes of finding him before it was too late. Our goals were two parts: first we needed to find Barton and free him from his bond to the Devourer. Lastly, we needed to find a means to either trap the Devourer or to destroy it. If we failed at either of these two goals, Trow, the Guardian of Truth, would sacrifice himself to see his enemy destroyed for all time.
As the path forward opened and we fought our way toward the Devourers fortress, we first found ourselves harrassed by various fae beings which were not keen on our trespass into their lands. Goblins and Trolls first, followed by mothriders and mayflowers blocked our way and slowed our pace.
As we progressed deeper into the fae wilds we finally made our way to the Enemy's fortress and it was there that disaster first struck. Under command of death wish many of our friends turned on us, and it was here that we had learned quickly that several had been replaced by truth constructs. We slowly begun to lose control over what we could trust. We entered into a chamber with mirror doors with guards. I started the day injured and so as one of my perks took 6th Soul regional which made me incorporeal as long as I kept spell active. While I could not affect things I was able to move around freely scouting and learning what must be done. I managed to sneak beyond these guards with a few others and together we quickly were able to determine the puzzle before us. One one side of the room was Spell names written backwards and on the other was spell descriptions written backwards. With the use of string we had to connect the correct spells with it description. Gordon took the lead on this an upon connecting the last pieces the door opened.
In the chambers that followed we encountered "Heroes of the Realms" and a short party where we had to make small talk to earn exit tokens otherwise risk being trapped forever. Once we finally realized that we could use these tokens to fill wine glasses at the door we were able to move along.
The next room was one of the most intense -- One I have labelled in my notes as "Oops all Bartons". Here we found ourselves facing more than a dozen Bartons all claiming to be him, but really only one was the real one. So, with the use of Trow's circle of truth rope we were able to dispell the illusions to finally reveal the correct Barton. However, once we were able to find Barton he still was agressive and we were unable to break the Devourers grasp over him through mundane means. So, Laika called upon Aurora to grant her his blessing and laid his hands upon Barton. While this action did not have its normal effect within the lair of the Devourer it allowed Laika to learn that in order to save Barton we would need a full circle of twelve guardian runes activated in a ritual.
The following were added into the ritual:
Runes:
Light - Gryffin
Soul - N and Jasper
Love - Irri
Magic - Mistral
Nature - Gordon
Time - Kasca
Truth - Saegan
Creation - Tarnisha
Mind - 404
Protection - Fern
Hope - Kalashai
Space - Styx
Furthermore, Tony added the following - three Truth rune activations and a small wish 'Barton is Free'.
Once the ritual was completed Barton was indeed free and our first goal was completed!
We carefully moved on expecting the Devourer to be angry with the loss of its servant, but found ourselves entering into what felt like a childrens school gymnasium playing a game we do not know against a team that knew the rules. As time passed we quickly learned the rules and ended up winning the game against the enemy team. This scene felt like it could have been pulled out of a game show like Game Changer and I really enjoyed it.
Upon winning the game we moved on to a room with a series of truth or dare constructs. As we completed things nothing happened, but as we failed to properly complete dares we were attacked. The first round of this nearly wiped us and that would have been the end of our journey if it wasnt for some quick thinking from a few feigning healers. After a while we ended getting stuck on a few dares, one being "Lick your elbow". Everyone knows this is impossible without dislocating your shoulder, and so Laika suggested that someone write "your elbow" on a piece of paper and lick it. The next time this came up I offered just that to the contestant and it worked!
Finally we found ourselves in a kings court with a lavoushly dressed Devourer/wannabe king. After a bit of parlay the Devourer lost his cool and got bored with us. Combat ensured and various plans were attempted. The Devourer couldn't just be killed and would regenerate if taken down. So, I worked to assist Tony to pull together another large ritual, but before we would get that done Saegan had other plans. Using a small wish Saegan called his shot, predicting that his kill on the Devourer would work. He then challenged the Enemy to single combat and won. The kill stuck and the Devourer did not return.
As the Enemy's power collapsed around us we fled out of the stronghold and our of fae being chased by various fae creatures who still were no pleased by our trespass.
We did it. The final goal was completed and Trow was saved from his martydom.
By: Kimberly "Mayumi" Coffey
Reality Check:
This is my method. It is not the only method. It may end up looking very little like your method, once you’ve figured out what works for you. This class has been designed based on the experience I’ve had planning feeding the army during the retaking of Darkvale, assisting with the kitchen at Yule, and running the kitchen with Del at Feast of Chimeron 28. It will be fairly easy to take these steps, and apply them to much less intense food planning purposes.
You’re going to need at least four days worth of work before the event, even if the effort is spread out across several weeks. This doesn’t count doing any food preparation beyond shopping, and doesn’t count any time spent on-site arranging it so people can get the food.
Brainstorming & info gathering,
menu decision & ingredient analysis,
Price Check & Math
Shopping
You are going to need to collect money from folks. You may be doing this meal plan FOR FREE: that doesn’t mean the community expects you to do this at a major loss! Do the math so you know how much it will cost to buy ALL of the things required to make this happen. Round up, maybe even add $2 per person, for the last minute stuff. If you’re just running a meal plan and end up collecting a little extra money, it’s OK, ACCEPTABLE, and EXPECTED for you to take this as payment for the effort you put into making sure everyone has food when they’re busy chasing adventure. Put it towards your event cost. If you collect more than a little extra, and you don’t need it to live your life, either bank it specifically for your next bout of feastocrat-ing, or consider paying it forward.
Outline
Decide you want to run a meal plan.
Know your resources
Onsite rules, space, and equipment
Equipment you can borrow
Equipment you own
Equipment you need to buy
Decide what diet restrictions you can reasonably accommodate.
Build a menu plan
Know how many people you are feeding, approximately
Turn your menu plan into a shopping list, based on how many servings you expect to make
Add to the shopping list all disposable or Reusable non-food items you will need.
Price check every item on your shopping list.
Total your costs.
Divide total cost by the number of expected people, to find cost-per person. Round up.
Open registration, collect money.
Set a registration deadline for guaranteed buy in.
Shop
Food Prep
Get everything onsite
Onsite prep and service
Site Cleanup
Information Gathering
See site inventory checklist. What is available, what is allowed, what will you need to bring?
Material Resources
What can you beg and borrow from friends, family, & the community
Tents/awnings, folding tables, camp stove(s), pots & pans, slow cookers, cooking/serving utensils, coolers, drink dispensers, bowls/plates/flatware for serving, cutting boards, measuring cups, oven mitts, dish towels, kitchen knives
Who do you know that has a BJs or Sam's Club membership?
What are you willing to buy
Expect to buy:
tin foil pans, disposable bowls/plates/cups/flatware, dish soap & sponge, paper towels, trash bags, tinfoil, ziplock bags,
Do you need charcoal, firewood or propane?
Are you going to make this a habit? Consider reusable supplies you have the space to store, like large camping coolers.
Consider your limitations
How much cold storage do you have, for storing between
shop ---> prep ---> event?
How much prep work can you actually do in your home kitchen?
Do you have a friend with a bigger kitchen who can host prep-day?
How much can you actually transport to and from site
Don’t forget that you need to pack your own gear, too
Call on friends to help transport to and from site
make sure they also know what is their responsibility to transport HOME after the event.
How much of the event content are you willing to skip out on, to make sure your friends are fed?
Grab & go food costs more - either in before-event prep time or cash for pre-made food.
How many people will be helping you, at any stage of the process? Do you have gold to pay them with, can you feed them while they help you?
Have a second in command, just in case,
have a couple people who will show up to prep day
How big are you willing to go?
This course applies best when you are planning to feed quite a crowd, but the basics can be applied to feeding just your cabin of friends.
How much effort are you putting in:
The amount of time and effort you are willing to spend is the second major limiting factor on your menu, but can be balanced against Food Cost - Prepared Food saves time but costs money. Preparing your own food saves money but costs time.
Before event
For the sake of finances and food-restriction accessibility, you’re probably going to spend at least one day doing prep work. CALL ON YOUR FRIENDS FOR HELP!
During event
Your menu and workspace will impact the amount of time and effort needed onsite.
How allergen/restrictions conscious are you going to be? See dietary restriction awareness handout.
Decide in advance how many of the FDA major allergen list you are going to limit or avoid all together
Milk/dairy, eggs, fish, shellfish, tree nut, peanut, wheat, soy, sesame
What meals are you planning for?
First meal: some folks will never give up their pre-event Dunks Run. Others will be very happy to have food available as soon as they arrive. Still others will show up later in the day. The first breakfast of a weekend is likely going to see less traffic, so plan accordingly.
The Lunch Question: Larpers are used to running on breakfast, snacks, and dinner. It’s not the best for them, though, especially our friends with conditions like Diabetes. A Hearty - but quick - meal for lunch, like burritos or other things resembling sandwiches, is a good option. During peak questing hours, more people will swing by to grab a sandwich-like meal than will take time to sit down with a plate and cutlery.
Exit Meal: The last meal of a weekender is usually during clean up, or just before. If you plan to serve anything, expect to serve the leftovers while you clean everything else up and plan to be one of the last folks off site.
Building a menu.
Maximize Satisfaction, Don’t Chase Perfection
You will NOT please everyone, especially if there’s only one dish per meal on offer. Accept this fact, and aim for ‘maximum number of folks able to eat the food.’
Offering a compile-your-own option like a burrito bar requires more set up effort & serving surface, but is a very good way to offer max variety with a reasonable amount of prep work. Careful layout of the service area will also allow for catering to more food restrictions than a single-pot meal.
Offering a couple options for a sauce - with pulled meat for example - uses only a little extra space and can make a great number of folks very happy. Classic BBQ, Teriyaki/asian, and southwestern/mexican are a good trio that will cover most tastes.
What's Filling?
Protein & high fiber carbs for feeling full
High fiber carbs can be cheap - whole grains, beans, brown rice, oatmeal, lentils
Protein and fiber together is best for feeling full with long term energy.
Refined carbs/sugar are the worst for feeling full, and for long term energy. Dayboard Bread and honey butter is great for keeping your blood sugar up without weighing your stomach down
Nutrition
What’s a Complete Protein? All the building blocks for protein, all in one food.
Complete Alone: quinoa, buckwheat, meat, fish, eggs, dairy, soy/tofu/edamame
Pair em up, pick two:
Whole grain
Seed / nut
Legume / bean
Your friends are probably dehydrated! Be sneaky about hydration:
Melons - watermelon in particular, but really any fruit is good news but not cheap
Veg: cucumber, iceberg lettuce, celery, tomato, etc
Soup, broth, or sauce - more is better. They won’t eat soup at Queen of Hearts unless it’s been pouring, but soup for dinner is a good bet the rest of the year
Salty snacks - these encourage getting a cup of drink for folks who don’t like much veg or fruit. Don’t skimp if you can help it.
What's Cheap?
Prepared food is expensive
Meat is expensive, bacon in particular
Dry bulk grains are cheap
Bulk buying & prep/cooking time can drastically lower overall costs.
Save Money: Buy Fewer Ingredients
Planning to use the same main ingredients as much as possible will save you both shopping time and money. Changing up the seasoning/flavor helps avoid monotonous food over a long weekend.
Look into “Batch Cooking” tips and menus for ideas. Batch bulk cooking is designed as a cook-in-advance method for a single person or small family, but blogs will often have good suggestions for a series of meal options that mostly share the same ingredients.
Reigning in the over-eager
How much you actually need: https://www.chef-menus.com/food-quantity-chart.html
This is something I personally still struggle with. You’re going to either throw food away, or hear complaints about there not being enough. In general, folks will eat less when it’s extremely hot out or they need to eat quickly and get back to the action. Conversely, if the questing was heavy and there’s a long enough dinner break, people will eat for what they missed at lunch and then some.
Plan your prepwork as you plan your menu
Be aware of what will reheat well, what space you have on site to store refrigerated & frozen food safely, what space you have for on site prep work, & how much cooking/heating space you have to use at any one time. Label each recipe: make & freeze, make (1-3 days) in advance, or prep & cook onsite.
A Gantt Chart is a workflow visualization that shows what is being worked on, in what location, at what time. It can easily be adapted to plan what dish is being cooked or prepared, in what kitchen location, at a given time - so that everything is ready at approximately the time you want it to be served.
Please learn from my mistakes. You may not need a full gantt chart for your meal plan or feast, but have an awareness of what time you should start preparing, cooking, and serving each dish - with extra time for inefficiencies. Print and pack three copies, and some tape.
Unfortunately, running an actual feast/event kitchen instead of a meal plan means you have to skip this step. Instead, you must set a deadline for registration of dietary restrictions, and work with your EH team to estimate attendance.
Write up your planned menu, including the allergens you plan on entirely avoiding.
Decide how to collect interest information and demographics. I use google forms - make sure to set it to NOT require a google sign in.
Collect: how sure they are about their attendance, which meals they will be on site for, which foods from the menu they will/won’t eat, their dietary restrictions, and possibly what price point they are willing/able to buy in at.
Set an interest-gathering deadline, with enough time to do the rest of the work you’ll need to do.
Tell everyone you’re committed to running a meal plan, ask everyone to fill out the interest survey.
Close the survey after the deadline. You now should have an idea of numbers, so you can do volume and cost estimates.
Be aware that not everyone will reply to an interest survey, especially if you are not annoyingly loud about it. For Divine Intervention 2, I saw 50 responses to the interest survey and ended up buying and cooking food for 75.
Price checking & budgeting
Multiply your serving sizes/recipes based on expected headcount
List out each ingredient you need, and how much - ie: if you are using the same dry white rice in several dishes, combine amounts so you know you need 10 cups total
Take some time to convert these into the measurements that the ingredient is generally sold in: you can’t buy 15 cups of diced onions, but googling “cups onion diced per lb whole” will tell you that 2 cups is about 1 pound whole onions. A bit of math: half of 15 means you need 7.5 lbs of whole onions.
Plan for all disposable items you need to purchase, and add them to your shopping list. Include reusable items that you need, too.
Price check everything.
Note down the store, package size, price, and how many packages you need.
Use amazon, instacart, and the online order-for-pickup websites of the supermarkets local to you, to quote the price
Round up at least to the .50 or $1 mark.
If one store has a drastically lower price on something, Mark down the second-best price instead, and make a note of where it was cheapest on the side. Price check these items again when you’re at the store
Total the entirety of your expected costs, divide by the number of people you are expecting to feed: this is your price per person.
Round up to a number that’s easy to pay in cash (change is a waste of time - instead of $32.85 call it $35)
Registration!
This section is again aimed at meal plans. For a propper feast, you and the rest of the event team should make sure to release a detailed dietary reg form, and may decide to offer flex pricing.
At a minimum, collect: contact information, name both IC & OOC, dietary restrictions and allergies, what meals they expect to be onsite and need food for.
Financial Assistance Options: our community is a giving and caring one. As part of your registration, you may choose to collect info on who requires assistance. Also ask if folks are willing to pay for “one, two, or as many as necessary” sponsored slots. Once registration is closed, you can tally up how much dollar value “financial assistance” was requested, and reach out, fairly, to those who are willing to give based on the registrations you received.
Keep quiet about who asks, and who gives. The community at large has no need to know personal financial information like this, and you are being trusted to keep quiet about it.
Set a deadline -
registration, diet restriction registration, and payment deadlines can be separate days.
Plan your public deadlines a few days in advance of your actual deadlines - it allows for last-minute or forgetful folks to buy in slightly after the fact.
Prepare your payment methods
Paypal and Venmo will make up the bulk of your buy-ins. Some folks will only be able to pay cash on site.
Let everyone know about it, collect information and money. Crow about it once a week, at different times and days. Make sure to remember “last chance today” messages.
Final non-food prep
Check your estimates against how many people actually registered. Bulk purchasing power means that you generally won’t be paying more per person to add on more servings, but even if prices go up you should still have wiggle room from rounding up the ticket price. Adjust your recipe totals, ingredient totals, and price checks accordingly.
Check that you can feed everyone who registered: many of the folks with dietary restrictions will make a point to reach out early, but some may have forgotten or had their schedule clear up for the event date. Consider what you could change about the prep of your existing menu to safely serve any late-comers: buying something specifically should be a last resort, but is sometimes necessary. Don’t forget to add these changes to your recipe notes, and extra items to your shopping list.
Time for a timing plan! You should now know what, and how much, you are going to need to prep, cook, plate, and serve. Reconsider your plan to skip the gantt chart. At least write out a timing list: week before event & freeze recipes, 3 days out recipes, 2 days out recipes, day before prep work, onsite prep work and cooking in order with timestamps. Print out all your recipes, and write the deadline and target start time on them.
Shopping
Plan for you, or someone, to stop on the way to site for things like fresh bread - place the order at least a few days out, and call to confirm the day before. Plan for your shopping expedition to take at least twice the time you think it will. Bring someone with you, if you can. Pack a cooler in your car for the cold stuff to go right into - maybe 2 for fridge & freezer items - so you can go to multiple stores in one outing. Plan to go to at least one of the stores twice, just in case the price on something has spiked or you missed an item.
Sort your ingredient/volume/source/price spreadsheet in a way that makes the most sense to your brain. Mine is usually by location, then by supermarket aisle/category. Print it out, make sure you can read it easily. Bring a pen - bonus points if it’s got more than one color ink.
While you’re at the store, check prices against your sheet. Even for items that are listed to be bought in other stores. If it’s about the same or lower than your price-check data, go ahead and buy it. If it’s a lot higher, highlight it and check the price at the next store.
Food Prep
The best way to learn about feast prep, is to make the time and show up when someone needs food prep help. See a feast on the calendar, or even any event with food? Reach out to the listed feastocrat, and ask if they need help for prep day (usually the day before the event).
Label EVERYTHING, label clearly, and do not use shorthand that your kitchen help can’t understand at a glance.
Almost everything that can be cooked on the stovetop can also be cooked in the oven - a google search will tell you how
The community is good about pitching in to help prep a meal plan or feast, but expects a few things from you in return:
Clearly set expectations about when, where, and how much help you need.
The Call is made in advance, so they can plan their time
A meal is included. Don’t let your friends get hangry.
You remind them. Repeatedly. 2 weeks out, a week out, and the day before. The Executive Dysfunction is real.
Getting Everything To Site
Stage everything the night before, piled neatly by the front door or in the garage. Have everything that’s still in the fridge and freezer in one pile, clearly visible. Have a list of the things that will be packed in coolers, to check against in the morning
Departure time: budget for
The drive itself
Traffic delays (holiday weekends especially)
A pit stop & stretch break (if drive is more than ~45 min)
Grabbing a meal or a coffee
20 minutes at the store for that thing you forgot, plus ice
Time to stop for the bread order, if it’s not been delegated
Transport Assistant Arrival Time: (work back from departure)
Time to bring everything outside
Time to make sure you have everything (15 minute inventory, 15 of scrambling around the house for what you missed)
Time to actually pack the car(s)
Extra time to take half of it out and repack. 3d tetris is a skill you may not have mastered.
Wake Up time: (Work back from assistant arrival)
The time it takes for you to get from alarm to ready to drive (if you weren’t bringing the whole kitchen)
Snooze time, if you’re the type
Time to pack the coolers
Does this seem excessive? Maybe. But something is very likely to go a little wrong, or take longer than planned. It’s better to be early than late, especially if you’re bringing all the food.
Always have a backup vehicle on deck - someone who either lives nearby, or has to drive past your area on the way to site - who you can call on in the event you can’t cram everything into the planned number of cars. If any of the folks who helped bring things to the event won’t be staying until the bitter end, make sure you have someone else lined up to help bring everything home. Yes, a lot of the volume of food will disappear into stomachs, but there is still all the gear to bring home.
On Site Prep & Service
Nothing will teach you more about how a feast kitchen can be run, than working in a feast kitchen. Reach out in advance to the feastocrat, and explain your skill level. Don’t expect direct mentorship while working in someone else’s kitchen - expect to be assigned tasks that are within your skill level, and possibly even boring. Keep your eyes open and observe how everything is set up. Observe how tasks are handed out and handled. How the ingredients are organized and stored. What foods have been prepared in advance, how they are transported and labeled, how they are reheated. If there is a lull in the activity - hurry up and wait doesn’t just apply to fighters - then you can ask questions about your observations.
Site Clean Up
Plan to be one of the last three people to leave the event site.
If you cannot promise that, you will need to have a second in command who can stay until the kitchen is fully cleaned.
Cleaning the kitchen will take, at absolute minimum, an hour.
A bigger feast, or a longer event, will mean a longer clean up time.
Don’t plan to serve any food during the clean up time,
plan to finish at least an hour before the event site closes -
you’re going to run late during the clean up.
Have several people who know it’s going to be their job to help clean to the bitter end. Hopefully, these are the same people who will be helping transport your gear home.
Dishwasher
Dish dryer
Someone to pack into bins
Someone to carry bins to the parking lot
You will throw out more food than anyone sane wants to see go into the garbage.
Plan on having a “take me” table. Set this up as soon as the last food has gone out.
Nonperishables are easy to convince friends to take home,
leftovers will travel, mostly, if you provide containers of some sort.
Make friends with someone who keeps small livestock. Offer them free animal feed, so long as they stay late to collect it.
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