Food/Kitchen for Spring I

Game Discussion
1

Hi everyone,

I am going to be trying to run/organize the kitchen from now on and to that end, I am going to be trying to set up a shift schedule for getting all the stuff done that needs to get done. If you are going to be at the event, please considering helping out. The more volunteers we get, the farther we can make our money stretch and the nicer meals we can have.

The way this will work is people can sign up for a shift up to one week before the event. If you do so, staff has mentioned they will try to schedule around said shift, and working the shift will grant you 2 cp (or equivalent). If you sign up for 3 or more shifts, you can trade 6 cp of that for event compensation (ie. you will not be charged for attending the event). You must sign up at least a week in advance for this to work. Email me at witchwoodfood@mit.edu to set up event compensation. Event comps are on a first come, first serve basis, and limited to 3 per event.

You are welcome to sign up for shifts afterwards, or poke your head into the kitchen to lend a hand during the event. That will earn you 1 cp every 2 hours, per the normal rate. There is also the possibility of earning leaf instead of CP, and I will make an edit to the post when we have settled on something. Shifts and job descriptions are listed below and I will do my best to keep this updated as people volunteer. You can claim shifts on a first-come, first-serve basis by posting here in the thread, on facebook (where I will make a matching thread), or by emailing witchwoodfood@mit.edu.

Meal times will be 8:30am-10am for breakfast (this is half an hour before the end of soft-stop, for alchemists and other early risers), 1-3pm for lunch, and 7-9pm for dinner. We will try and manage snacks between meals and I will post a menu as soon as one exists (generally a week or so before the event).

Recent edits: Event comps limited to three, and it takes the full three shifts to earn an event comp. No bonus CP

2

(Shifts may be added or slimmed down as the menu changes. You need fewer people for an oatmeal bar than you do for pancakes, eggs, and sausage)

Shifts:
Friday
Friday 10pm-2am: Tavern Help
Saturday
Saturday 6:30-8:30am: Primary Cook_____________Ducky
Saturday 6:30-8:30am: Cook
Saturday 6:30-8:30am: Cook____________________Kate
Saturday 9-11am: Primary Dishwasher
Saturday 9-11am: Dishwasher
Saturday 9-11am: Dishwasher
Saturday 9am-1pm: Tavern Help
Saturday 11am-1pm: Primary Cook_______________Joey
Saturday 11am-1pm: Cook
Saturday 2-4pm: Primary Dishwasher
Saturday 2-4pm: Dishwasher
Saturday 2-6pm: Tavern Help
Saturday 5-7pm: Primary Cook__________________Alex
Saturday 5-7pm: Cook_________________________** Yuki**
Saturday 5-7pm: Cook
Saturday 8-10pm: Primary Dishwasher
Saturday 8-10pm: Dishwasher
Saturday 8-10pm: Dishwasher
Saturday 9pm-1am: Tavern Help
Sunday
Sunday 6:30-8:30am: Primary Cook_______________Alex
Sunday 6:30-8:30am: Cook
Sunday 9-11am: Primary Dishwasher
Sunday 9-11am: Dishwasher
Sunday 9am-1pm: Tavern Help
Sunday: 11am-1pm: Primary Cook________________Ducky
Sunday: 11am-1pm: Cook

Shift Descriptions
Tavern Help- Running around, refilling snacks, moving used dishes to the dishes window, occasionally running the dishwasher. Making sure the water is topped off. You do not need to stay in the tavern, but check in once a half hour or so. Despite being 4 hours, they only count as 1 shift.
Cook- Responsible for preparing and serving the food.
Dishwasher- Cleaning dishes from the cooks, and people eating. This may also kitchen organization and light prep for next meal.

Primaries- You know the layout of the kitchen and have the recipe in mind. You are directing the others, and we will have a meeting of all the primaries at the beginning of every event to get stuff sorted (this position likes, but in no way shape or form requires experience. I am here to help and can walk you through everything).

We are always soliciting meal ideas, and if a PC group wants to cook a meal as a unit, we can remove the relevant shifts and just slot you guys in there (even if there are more than three of you). You do not need to suggest a meal idea to be a cook or a primary cook, nor do you need to have a meal idea to be a primary cook.

Show the kitchen some love :slight_smile:

Recent edits: shifts are prorated based on time spent. If a shift ends early, CP is awarded to the nearest quarter hour.

3

Straight up, bless you for this. Both for taking on the responsibility of both action and organization, and for getting staff/the Board to agree to a better compensation rate for kitchen help. The changes released earlier this spring were still insufficient for our volunteers, and this feels much better. Thank you for all your work on this.

4

Hi! Could I please take the Saturday 9-1 Tavern Help and Saturday 2-4 Dishwasher shifts? Thanks!

5

Aaaand 11-1 Saturday cook shift.

6

Thank you for organizing shifts! And thank you all for volunteering.

My current plan is to be in the kitchen from 9am-??PM Saturday and from Sunday early morning until things are clean (probably between 1 and 3pm).

That doesn’t mean I’m the primary chef, necessarily, for any particular meals. I’ll just as happily help make someone else’s dinner/lunch/breakfast dreams come true.

Some additional details on dinner cooking:

Dinner generally involves several components:

a main meaty dish

a main veggie dish.

Sides, preferably accommodating as many diets as possible. The scale of sides has varied based on the “main” dish - eg soups and stews have several points of sides “built in”

Dessert

For example, a good cooking shift could be making dessert combined with general help with other dishes while stuff is in the oven.

7

Hey guys,

Some edits to working for event compensation, and we have settled on prorating the shifts for now, as opposed to paying by shift.

The event is two weeks out, which gives people 1 week to sign up for shifts in advance. Please, please, please do so. I cannot promise the quality of the food will not suffer if people do not sign up. The more help we get, the better food we get. Otherwise, we might just end up with oatmeal, sandwiches, and soup.

8

Anybody want to help me cook Saturday breakfast? (Haven’t done this before, so it would be nice to have at least some help.)

9

I’m really not psyched about Breakfast. I’d try for a different meal if you need help, although I’m not actually a good cook, so other people should volunteer to cook instead of me if they can.

10

For Saturday breakfast, I could prep things for french toast casserole, which is delicious. The ideal process there would be for me send up trays of bread and a container of egg-stuff; pour the egg stuff over the bread Friday night, and bake Saturday morning.

11

So, menu planning!

I’m going to be out next weekend through that Wednesday morning, which means I need to figure out which things I’m cooking. It would also be nice to actually send out a menu ahead of time.

Here’s my understanding of the state of the spring 1 menu, at the moment.

General

The grilled cheese on demand will be happening. We need the usual set of snacks as well.

Saturday breakfast
Katoco has expressed interest, but needs support/ideas. I can send french toast casserole up but it would require 10 minutes of attention Friday night and baking Saturday morning.

Banana bread / pumpkin bread / that sort of thing is good.

Saturday lunch
I have heard that there are some people who want to do lunch. If not, then, burrito bar, unless someone has good lunch ideas.

Saturday dinner

I’d like to roast some potatoes until they’re golden brown and delicious.

If nobody wants to do a particular meat thing, I’m thinking of doing pulled pork. If someone has a large slow cooker they can lend me, that would help. Because of work travel right before the event, this would be slightly hosing to prep (it has to be done ahead of time due to cooking time)

Slow cooked carrots came out pretty delicious some events ago, or at least, I thought so.

Vegetarian protein, a vegetable lasagna may be good, with a small batch of vegan lasagna.

Other vegetarian protein suggestions are especially needed (I’m sick of making vegetarian chili); the only side I’m excited by is the potatoes, so more ideas there would be good.

The default dessert is the megapack of Costco ghiardelli brownies. I have a source for cookies or other baked desserts as well (they would be made pre-event) so that’s an alternative.

Sunday breakfast

Grilled cheese and tomato soup has been a huge hit in the past, and is easy to make and help with.

I have a bunch of cream of wheat that I bought and never used.

12

Sure, I would totally make french toast casserole happen if you have a recipe.

13

Awesome - do you want to do the whole thing (which would require some prep Thursday or Friday)?

In the past, I’ve improvised based on things like this : http://allrecipes.com/recipe/240502/easy-french-toast-casserole/
Sadly, I didn’t keep the best records of exactly what proportions I settled on – they mostly vary in amount of sugar. I tend to go for less sugary variants when cooking for the game. I reduced the eggs-per-bread ratio and added a little more almond milk.

I use challah as the bread (costco has cheap challah) and use a non-dairy milk, though. I think the correct multiplier is to use 5 lbs of bread and 48 eggs and 12 cups of milk.

For baking, the biggest thing is to thoroughly foil wrap, because the convection ovens will thoroughly dry things out. I use the low fan setting most of the time; and I’ve meaning to experiment with adding a water pan to the stove to reduce the amount of dessication it causes.

14

I’ll take a Saturday dinner cooking shift.

15

Sure, I could do the prep work Friday night - I don’t think I can be the one to acquire the ingredients though, so I’ll need someone else to bring them to game.

16

If anyone is interested in helping extend the kitchen budget beyond what we get from your registration fees, we are willing to offer a few donation CP for people who chip in. (A number of your tasty meals last year were enhanced in tastiness by some generous donations.)

17

Sure, I will throw some money at that.

18

Much appreciated!

19

I, too, would be happy to donate a bit towards this. Let me know how much you’re thinking, and how to get it to you?

20

We should be all set for the moment, although the offer will most likely be back for the next event.