cellio | Purim

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Purim

The event went well, from what I saw. People seemed to be having fun, we got entries for both the brewing and illusion-food contests, I Genesii did a great take on the Purim story, and people ate the food. There were about 20 no-shows, which I didn't know until late in the day, which explains some of the food excess. Not all of it; for some things either I over-estimated or I just plain didn't know how much people would eat.

I'm told the head-count was 94. This was a buffet, not a served feast. Here are some notes on the food.

Chicken soup: uninteresting. I think they ate about one gallon, total. Not worth the hassle.

Lentils with onions: I made three bags (six cups, dry); there were almost none left. This surprised me.

Fried spinach: it turned out to be impossible to get fresh spinach; I tried three stores. Bagged is expensive, so I had less than I'd planned (I had about three and a half pounds). It all went, and pretty quickly. This, too, surprised me.

Beef pies: they ate nine or ten over the course of a few hours (I had fourteen), but several people asked for leftovers to take home.

Hard-boiled eggs: the rule of thumb I'd been given was "one per person plus a dozen (for breakage)". One per person who actually showed up turned out to be about right.

Apples (mostly) and pears (some) (quartered): mostly went. About eight pounds total, I think (I forget the bag weight).

Dried fruits: used three pounds of apricots, two of prunes, and one of raisins.

Olives: got five pounds; I think about two-thirds went.

Stuffed grape leaves: one five-pound tin went pretty quickly.

Pickles: probably used the equivalent of two grocery-store large jars (as opposed to the mega-jars from the warehouse club). What can you do with leftover pickles?

Bread: Alastar and his crew were producing fresh-baked bread all day. They used a variety of recipes. I have no data on quantities. I do know that trays of fresh, hot bread often failed to make it all the way to the buffet table before being depleted, but at the end we had some left. He had said that for $30 in ingredients (and propane) I'd get more bread than I needed.

Smoked salmon: I think we used about twelve pounds.

Cabbage stew: I started with nine heads of cabbage (which cooked down somewhat); I think they ate half to two-thirds of it.

Rice: four cups dry would have been fine.

Roasted chicken: they raved about this, and all we did was apply olive oil, rosemary, and some salt and pepper and roast it.

Roasted veggies: four or five pounds of carrots, two or three of parsnips, about two of turnips, and six or eight large yellow onions, drizzled with olive oil, thyme, and salt. Forgot about one bowl of these (found it in the dumbwaiter a couple hours later). Pretty popular, but not immediately.

White beans: (Cooked with onion, garlic, and some spices I'll have to look up.) This was a cold dish (by design). They ate some but not a lot.

Fish pies: these were labor-intensive but went over very well. We used about ten pounds of tilapia; seven would have been fine (but all the leftovers got taken home). We managed to find frozen bread dough that was parve and had a pizza recipe on the back (strongly implying that it could be rolled flat), so we used that. Actually rolling it out posed challenges; the secret seemed to be to roll it out somewhat, let it sit for ten or fifteen minutes, and then roll it out more. Trying to do it all at once didn't work too well.

Meatballs: they ate about four pounds' worth, I think.

Goat stew: I had no idea how people would react to goat; it could have been anywhere from "you want me to eat what?" to "ooh, something new!". It turned out to be closer to the latter. We had about 25 pounds of goat, though a lot of that was bone and fat. Most of it went.

Eggplant stuffed with fruit: we made four eggplants; I think they ate two and a half.

Green salad: Alastar was right; one bag of lettuce is enough for a feast.

Roasted garlic: tasty, but I think we needed to actually squeeze out the cloves instead of expecting people to do it themselves.

Chickpeas with onions and honey: aborted; it didn't look like we needed more legumes, so I didn't make them.

Hulvah: I think they ate about a pound.

Almond cookies: eh.

Hamantashen (made by lorimelton): went pretty quickly. I'm not sure how many she made -- four dozen or so?

Sugared walnuts (a surprise present): I think they ate about a quart or quart and a half.

I did not do a lot of cooking myself during the day (though I did a lot of prep beforehand). I was, instead, mostly directing other people; I was fortunate to have a lot of help, but I didn't always have a sense of how long a task would take. (Making the fish pies and peeling hard-boiled eggs took longer; cutting up fruit and preparing chicken went faster.) I had prepared a schedule for the day in advance, but found myself improvising a fair bit. (Oh -- someone's available now. Sure, let's go ahead and chop those veggies; they'll keep.) I was doing a poor job of tracking what was going on in the basement, which meant some food was ready ahead of schedule (they put it into the oven as soon as they had it; I failed to tell them otherwise). So this turned into a "food comes out when it's ready" buffet instead of the three distinct courses I'd planned.

The site: we were at the castle, the new home of two of our members. The kitchen is a decent household kitchen, with typical household appliances. The "period kitchen" is a tower room with a working fireplace and some work tables; we used it for prep, storage, staging, and two roasters. (Roaster location was dictated by the circuit layout.)

What made this menu possible was Alastar deciding he wanted to test out his bakery equipment before Gulf Wars next week, so he brought two large propane-fueled ovens. In addition to the bread we used them for the chicken, roast veggies, meat pies, fish pies, and eggplant. He also brought along a couple sinks, I think (or maybe we just used the utility sinks in the basement; I didn't look closely). Washing dishes in the kitchen sink would have been impractical due to both size and needing the workspace for prep. Without Alastar's equipment, I would have had to prepare a very different menu.

Because we had people working in the basement and in the kitchen, communication was a little tricky (we used runners). Only at the end of the event did anyone think to use cell phones for this. (I'd been speculating that their dumbwaiter needed a bell; sometimes we used it to send something to the other space, but unless the delivery was expected no one knew to go look.)

Alastar's equipment made this possible, but it's also a lot of work to get it there (and back again) and set up. I don't think he's going to offer this for most events.

As we were cleaning up the autocrat shared something scary she'd heard: several people told her they're looking forward to coming to this event next year. :-) I thought it was a one-shot niche event; can it sustain interest if we do it again? Well, we don't have to decide now.

This event was also an experiment in another way. I won't work for an event that charges the corporate tax, so this was a donation-funded event with a fee for the food. Most of our free events are at free sites and have pot-luck food; this event had costs (we had to rent tables and chairs, mainly) and we weren't sure if people would see a fee and just pay that without reading the announcement to see that that was just for food. Results: $225 in expenses, $268 in donations. Good; that demonstrates that this model can in fact work in this group. With luck the officers will be open to doing it again. (They were rather reluctant to accept this event bid, though obviously they did in the end. I basically promised them that this event would not lose money and they accepted it based on my (and the autocrat's) personal clout.)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Goat == Meat.
Goat stew == Meat stew.

You got the barbarian vote. :)

"Goat, almost as good as dog!" :D :D :D
(And my wife would be behind me, telling everyone "He's kidding! Really!" :D
-- Dagonell

Ah. And meat should not be adultrated by stuff like pie crusts? :-) (They passed on some of the earlier meat.) Maybe it's the "thump" factor; Johan used to refer to serving "roast thump" for fighters, where "thump" is any meat that makes that sound when you drop it on the counter.

Precisely! (Was he the origin of that? I'd always encountered it as "Roast thud for the fighters.")

I don't know if he's the origin; that's just where I learned it. He used to hang out in Carolingia, so I can't begin to speculate about the vectors.

Wait... goat is kosher?

It can be; it chews its cud and has a split hoof.

Yup. This particular goat was not (it did not come from a kosher butcher); I made a lamb version on the side for folks who care. But yes, goat is a kosher species. So is deer, by the way; it's just that the usual ways of acquiring deer render the instance non-kosher. (And, by the way, so is bison, which I have had a couple times on those rare occasions when my butcher has it.)

I'm a city kid, so "split hoof and chews the cud" wasn't particularly informative for me. I found a list. :-)

I can get both deer and bison at the kosher butcher, but I've yet to find goat. Someday...

Roasted garlic: tasty, but I think we needed to actually squeeze out the cloves instead of expecting people to do it themselves.

Bah, smooshing it out yourself is part of the fun. And congratulations on a successful (and delicious-sounding) event!

Thanks.

I think the garlic would have worked better at a served feast rather than a buffet.

thanks for the breakdown.
I know figuring out portions almost killed me.

Portions are hard, and buffets and served feasts are different, and there are other factors like weather and what activities are being held. I'd like to see other specific feast breakdowns, as general guidelines only get you so far.

Leftover pickles and olives will be gobbled down by your fighters and fencers. I put out what I thought was an absurd quantity at K&Q Rapier Champions about two years ago, and they vanished. Take your leftovers to an upcoming practice or combat event.

Thanks! Someone made off with the olives (fine with me), but I've got a lot of pickles. Fighting practice, ho! :-)

(Is it really true that opened jars of cut pickles need to be refrigerated?)

The leftover pickles are unlikely to spoil, assuming they are in brine, even if you don't refrigerate them. But they will be crunchier (which some people find more appealing) if chilled.

Everything I had was very good. I second the vote on having the garlic cloves removed before hand. Most people didn't want an entire garlic bulb's worth, and I found it almost impossible to cut or break apart a bulb, plus pulling the cloves out left me with greasy fingers. But they were yummy! :-)

And I am pleased to see that there were actually parsnips in the veggies - Ming held one up and asked what it was, and I guessed parsnips but someone else insisted it was turnip. I thought it was the wrong shape and texture for turnip but figured they could have been cut up that shape... so now I feel vindicated. :-)

Thanks. I think the garlic would have worked better that way at a sit-down feast, where you send a couple of those to each table. You don't have a plate in one hand, you can use a utensil if you want, and one person can do it for the whole table. I've always seen the garlic come out this way so I didn't think about the differences for a buffet.

There were both parsnips and turnips in the veggies, but we weren't cutting the turnips to look like parsnips, so she probably had a parsnip. The surprise for me in that dish was how sweet the onions (just ordinary yellow onions) turned out. I haven't seen that effect when roasting veggies at home. I wonder what was different about Steve's oven and/or baking pans.

I get very sweet onions when I roast plain yellow ones at home. I have them (with whatever other veggies I'm putting in with them) at 450 or so for an hour or more, depending on how fine the dice and how fast the caramelization happens.

How do you roast them?

Ah, that might be the difference: at lower temperature. I usually roast at somewhere between 350 and 400 (depending on whether the veggies are sharing the oven with anything else that cares). I also do bigger pieces; I usually quarter small onions (or eighth larger ones). Thanks; I will try higher temperatures and smaller chunks.

(I usually roast with root veggies and sometimes red peppers and/or garlic.)

Oh, another difference, though I don't know if it matters: at the event we had baking sheets -- basically shaped like cookie sheets, but bigger. My cookie sheets are all dairy and I'm usually roasting veggies for a meat meal, so I use a pan that's shaped about like a cake pan. (It might have been intended to be a cake pan, for all I know.) Could the sides of the pan somehow be interfering with good roasting action?

Yeah, temperature makes a huge difference; caramelization doesn't happen nearly so easily at the lower temps (I also roast chicken and salmon at high temps, when covered with something to keep moisture in, like honey mustard or chutney). You don't have to change the size you're using, though, if you're willing to cook them longer. Of course, feel free to dice if you'd prefer. Just don't make them very small, because they'll burn. I find that dice side edge about half an inch is the smallest that is feasible, and I mostly make them larger than that because the veggies shrink so much.

I roast root veggies (including unpeeled beets), red peppers, eggplant, garlic, tomatoes, cauliflower, green beans (much shorter oven time), zucchini,...

I use my baking sheets lined with foil turned up to make an edge all around (to keep any oil runoff inside). Not as deep as a cake pan, though. I think that if you don't heap the veggies up to fit more in (because of the sides), it should be fine, though there might be some difference in results.

Roasted garlic: tasty, but I think we needed to actually squeeze out the cloves instead of expecting people to do it themselves.
If you do that, make more/person than if they do the work themselves... people who adore garlic tend to go for it in large quantities :-).

What to do with pickles: chop them up in tuna salad, or Israeli salad. Eat them with deli sandwiches. Serve them as part of a mezze course with olives and hummus. Get different kinds and have a pickle tasting :-).

Thanks for the suggestions. I hadn't thought to put them in Israeli salad, but that would be good. You already use cucumbers, which are just pre-pickles, after all.

I do wish you'd run it again. If I hadn't been committed to teaching the chainmail classes on Saturday, I'd have been there!
-- Dagonell

I'm sorry we missed you, but I certainly understand. I hope the classes went well.

The chicken was my favorite, also I loved the lentils and the fried spinach. The fish pie was also good. This is going to sound wierd, but I didn't know there was fish in it till after I ate it. And of course, the fresh bread throughout the day was phenomenal. Dave said he liked helping in the kitchen.

Thanks. I'm glad you liked the food and that Dave enjoyed helping. I certainly appreciated having his help!

The original plan had been for three distinct courses (so the fish pies would have been announced as such), but we ended up in this groove of food just going out when it was ready, so that got messed up. I hadn't considered the confusion with the fresh-baked bread; oops. (I had planned to make one up as a fish -- almond scales, olive eye, etc -- but it didn't happen. If that had been in the center of the platter it might have been more obvious.)

Yes, can i possibly get the recipes for the lentils and the fried spinach? oh,yeah, and the chicken??

Chicken's easy: lay out pieces on baking tray, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with rosemary and a little salt. (Normally I also use garlic powder, but there was garlic in other dishes so I didn't.)

I'll get the other recipes for you later. I adapted them from Cariadoc's Miscellany.

Ok, to be completist on the chicken: bake uncovered until done. Higher temperatures are probably better; don't go lower than 350. ("Done" is measured by a meat thermometer.)

Glad this one worked for you financially. We've had a similar experience at our (not-free) site ever since we went to the donation-only model for our local schola event. Furthermore, every year we manage to clear just a little bit more than the year before.

But how often can you count on Purim being on a Sunday? ;>

But how often can you count on Purim being on a Sunday? ;>

That question came up yesterday, to which I said: how often can you count on Twelfth Night being on a Saturday? :-) So maybe it won't actually be on Purim; so?

Besides, next time Purim is on a Sunday, I want to see if I can get my synagogue interested in the idea of doing a big feast. Right now Purim is pretty much a kiddie holiday at my congregation, but why should it be? We have a kitchen; we have a social hall... Make it BYOB to avoid weird liquor laws, and it'd be fine. Charge people 10 or 15 bucks a head instead of the 7 we charged for this feast, serve similar food, and everyone would win.

I found the fish pies surprisingly better than I expected, I admit to being skeptical. They were very good, which is good, because I hope I never see another lump of dough for awhile. I also really liked the meat pies and the spinach.

On the whole, excellent (and plentiful!) food!

It's an odd-sounding combination of ingredients, but it works. It helps to like cilantro and ginger. :-)

I am really sorry about the dough. I had intended to try to have people trade off, because rolling dough is hard work, and then something happened that took me away from the action for a while and I completely failed to monitor the situation. You and

ralphmelton (anyone else?) deserve kudos!

The meat pies were close to the other end of the spectrum -- uncomplicated and no hard work. I bought those pie crusts! (Hmm, I've never tried making the fish pie in a conventional pie shell, in part because it needs to be sealed and I don't know what you do for top crust in that case. Worth exploring.)

oh, it's not a problem and I don't mind doing it. I was just utterly amazed by the elasticity of the dough.

I didn't get a chance to look at the ingredients list you had posted; what was in the beef pies?

Beef, onions, garlic, allspice, paprika, sugar (! just a bit), salt, pepper, olive oil, flour, commercial pie crust. (I had the wrapping from the crusts in case anyone needed to drill down into those ingredients, but I tossed it at the end of the event. Kosher parve, so no lard and no milk.)

The elasticity of the dough was pretty strange. The dough came frozen; each of those bags had five individual loaf-shaped chunks in it. I asked Char and Cara to move th bags to the fridge Saturday night after Shabbat; I thought this would thaw, not initiate rising. The big, bloated blobs you saw Sunday afternoon were what confronted me in the fridge when I got there in the morning. I have no idea whether the dough would have worked differently if I had gone straight from freezer to separated and out on a counter somewhere.

On the other hand, watching you guys drape the dough like towels was funny. :-)

I am glad I could provide amusement.

The reason that only one pound of Halva was eaten is because I found out that it existed during the last 10 minutes of the event when I was already irrevocably stuffed. Had I found out earlier, you could have easily count 2 pounds eaten... I am so addicted to it!

On the other hand, eating halva and playing the recorder... bad, bad idea!

Ah, I begin to suspect that I know one way to your heart. :-) (You'll have to wrestle our hosts for the leftover halvah.)

I think I'll leave it to them, then, as I am positive they would win any sort of wrestling ;)

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Purim

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roasting onions

Re: roasting onions

Re: roasting onions

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