event meal plan idea

[arethinn]

I had a thought about a possible way of orchestrating a "meal plan" of sorts for another attempt at a gather. I know from experience that bringing your own food from a long ways away is difficult to impossible*. If you have someplace nearby to buy, that helps, but still it'd be hard on anyone who'd be trying to take a plane. But on the other hand, I am definitely not up for actually arranging for catering (yikes!) or cooking everything myself.

So I thought, how about a "food bank" approach? People who want to buy into the plan pay extra on top of the registration fee, and then check some boxes in a list or whatever indicating their general food preferences, and food is bought and brought on their behalf by a person or people actually local to the site, but they still have to prepare it themselves. Perhaps additionally those bringing food and not buying the plan could be asked to bring one extra item (such as a box of cereal, a can of some vegetable, etc) to add to the pile just in case. Does this sound like it might work, given sufficient cooking equipment and facilities?

* - Basically fuhgeddaboudit if you are trying to cross an international border, not that I expect any Canadians; even some states have rules about what can be brought from other states, and actually California is one of them, although I've only once been stopped on the way instate and asked if I had any proverbial fruit to declare.

Comments

[r-monoxide.livejournal.com]

I myself would prefer a food bank type of thing rather than prepared meals. With all my food allergies I have to be careful about what I eat and would prefer to prepare it myself.

[tyrsalvia.livejournal.com]

This can work only if you have a community storage area where everyone can get to their food at all hours of the day/night and everyone has a good idea of about how much is theirs (in other words, it would suck to think you'd brought enough only to find that one person has the appetite of ten and is taking a disproportionate amount of food). One problem you run into is wanting to "save" enough for the rest of the time, and this is multiplies with more people who are uncertain of how much they can have. If I'm at a gathering for a week, I'm going to manage my food so as to have enough good meal combinations for the whole week, and probably a little more because I'm afraid to run out. If people are doing this with the food bank approach, you can wind up having everyone eat minimally when there was a ton of food because they wanted to make sure everyone had enough.

That's not to say this is a bad idea, just that these are concerns to deal with.

Randomness

[sethanikeem.livejournal.com]

Customs Agent: Anything to declare?
Lizzie: Just this fruit I bought at the Goblin Market.
Customs Agent: ...

--M

[heartssdesire.livejournal.com]

That is an interesting thought. I've been wrestling with this question for a gathering I'm organizing next year at our place. We have the kitchen facilities, but mainly the problem is, how do I make sure everyone has the ability to get fed when they're an hour from town, some are flying in and can't be expected to haul stuff in? Catering is uber-expensive. So that kind of leaves you with the meal-plan idea, in which you risk volunteering yourself to be a kitchen slave. Or you can get somebody *else* to be a kitchen slave. None of the above seemed like a good option. I like your idea. It's a good start.

[arethinn]

We successfully accomodated a couple of vegans and a diabetic at Hollow Hills last year, but your point is a good one.

Re: Randomness

[arethinn]

*sun rises*

...er, I mean these leaves, apparently...?

[arethinn]

Community storage area: Not likely to be a problem. The site in question does have a kitchen and I think only the middle of the night might be off limits, so I'm not too worried about that. People are not going to be up trying to cook at 3 AM.

Eating less than one's share and winding up with lots of extra: An interesting point. This would only be a weekend affair, though (2-3 days), so I think it's not quite the problem one would have at a week event. With a shorter period like that, some people can probably take stuff back home.

[tyrsalvia.livejournal.com]

This was one of the problems we had at Burning Man this year, amongst others. I won't buy food for anyone again, because I didn't know how to do it this year and it turned into a major bone of contention when circumstances were less than ideal.

I think if you have stuff in a community location and it's only for a weekend, you should be fine.

[r-monoxide.livejournal.com]

That's good to know. I also happen to be allergic to wheat and peanuts! (Even I wonder how I survive)