Occams Razor

So... No meal plan. How are people planning food? For themselves? Or would anyone like to talk shared meal/pot luck-ish for, at least, dinner?

I promise, Liberty would never poison your food Nope. Never.

- kim

I...have no idea what I'm going to do for food. Some sort of shared-ish thing sounds good to me, especially if it comes with advice on how in the world one plans food for a LARP event. I have never done this before.

So, right now, we're doing a cabin-by-cabin Who Can Bring What thing. We got to do a bit of dry-run of this, as the folks that did the Fifth Gate Kickstarter 1-Day pot-lucked our lunch.

For Team WILL DIE BADLY, I think we're bringing some crock-pots with things like meat and vegetables and pasta sauce, and some electric tea kettles, stove-tops (hotplates) to use in the Diner.

I'm Team Dad that brings like a sack of Boffer Repair Supplies, two sacks of Food, a sack of ponchos/warmers/bugspray/sunscreen, so my load won't change .

Given that we likely won't have water readily available, pre-cooking some stuff is a good idea. I'm a big fan of cooking up a coupla boxes of pasta, as that goes well with crock-potted sauce, or with just oil/seasoning as pasta salad, etc.

I always bring a couple power strips, so, it might also not be a bad idea to see if we can use the counter by the kitchens for people to put/plug in crock pots and such.

The 'nice' thing about the fact that'll probably still be crazy cold this next event is that we can just leave stuff sitting out in the cabin without a fridge :/

Okay, enough Larp-Dad rambling.

When packing stuff for a weekend I tyically bring sandwich stuff for 3-4 meals, a container of baked beans from thus place in Lowell, and some snacks things.

I coulda sworn there was a meal plan option for this event though.

Rhyan and I (Harry Davenport and Dr. Vanessa) have a Sam's Club membership. We can buy bulk sized amounts of food, if someone wants to cook it!

Hi -

If we do want to do a communal thing I'd suggest pasta for dinner, several kinds of sauce (marinara, something white, maybe a meat sauce), several kinds of protein (chicken, meatballs, sausage), and veg (zucchini, peppers, maybe mushrooms). Have almost everything prepped in advance (chicken cooked and sliced in bags; vegetables sliced and par-cooked, meatballs and sausage can go into crockpots) - on site combine options in big pans, tossing the pasta with sauce and 'add-ins' to warm.
Add a salad and some bread and you have a good meal. The benefit of several sauces and proteins is that it covers vegetarian, meat-lovers, etc...
Pasta is filling - and adding the protein is important (at a LARP you need the protein).

Otherwise, I'd suggest a taco bar - you can do all the mise in advance and then its just line folk up with tortillas and let them run down the line and add what they want for themselves. Different people can even commit to bringing different parts of the prepped ingredients - spreading out the cost and the work. The benefit of Mexican/a taco bar is that very little of it needs to be warm. Shredded cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, peppers, olives, hot peppers, beans, other veg people like, sour cream, salsa, some protein and rice (the only things that would be better warmed), and corn and flour tortillas cover the entire meal.

Breakfast can be covered by baked goods and fresh fruit brought in - also, on facebook several people have said they have waffle irons (I *might* have one - I need to dig around in my kitchen). I think you can actually buy waffle/pancake mix in a jug (either premixed or you just add water and pour). As there won't be water at the diner plans should revolve around as little clean-up as possible. Waffle irons can just be sponged down - if you do eggs you've got pans and bowls and spatulas and... all needing washing.

On the facebook post it was indicated there will be refrigerator available for players - so that covers keeping stuff fresh.

I like the idea of a communal meal because it maintains the sense of community - not breaking us up into our separate groups.

(Can anyone tell I've done this type of thing before? )

Thoughts?
- kim

Damn, that's quite the case for Taco/Burrito bar!

It was stated on the Faceyspace, but to throw it in here too in case it helps: There will be a fridge in the diner for PC access and use.

If we have a griddle, I will bring supplies to make potato & chive pancakes.

I am happy to participate in either the pasta or taco bar plan. Just let me know which prepped ingredients you need me to bring, and how much, and I'll take what I can carry. I usually travel pretty light, so some extra load won't inconvenience me any.