Prohibition Banquet - terrifying tests
Today I updated my testing notes for the Prohibition Banquet.
From the diner’s point of view the banquet is a long way off, but the hotel chef needs information considerably sooner in order to plan their first reconstructed historic meal.
At my end, things have suddenly got simpler. I’m emailing most of the testers to say “No need to test any more meat and vegetable dishes,” though there are still vegetarian dishes out there to sort out for the main course, as I don’t have anything suitable for vegetarians yet.
The ice cream and sorbet testing has slowed down a little, but the preliminary tests mean that some of these recipes won’t need testing any more either. I’ve made a note to see if I can chat with my ice cream expert on Thursday. Given that her knowledge is rapidly outgrowing mine (which is the joy of the testing) it would be best to work on this together. I know what has to fit into the rest of the meal – she knows what’s most likely to need testing.
The numbers are getting a little worrying. They won’t become unworrying until I start getting more reports back from testers. This is the month where it feels it could all go wrong, even though really, there’s nothing to worry about. The thing is, I started off with 5,000 pages of recipes and all those menus. Now I have exactly five pages of recipes not out there being tested, and some of those recipes will be taken by my students on Thursday and then some more by me. That leaves … not much.
When it starts flooding back, I can start playing with tastes and thinking about what needs to go to the next stage of testing. Some things ought to go straight through to the final menu. Until that happens, though, I will worry. This is the six weeks when, really, everything is out of my hands.
Leave a Reply