United March on DC ***Serious Discussion and Info Only***

are the shuttles bringing people back

 

ok i take that as a not

 

Just need 3-4 folks for set-up like on SAT. Unsure what the deal is with Pedro's band set up??

Too make it easy, pre cooking of the onions will help. I will do some peppers and onions the night before if needed, and will be there to help set up. all depends on what type of meat we have if its pre-cut or not.


~worm~

 

Me as well. But I've been concerned about this, too. Not even starting to set up the kitchen until 5pm makes time very tight to have the kitchen cleaned up and broken down by 7pm. I'd like to strongly vote for less carne and more hot dogs, purely for time reasons.

This particular problem isn't one that can be solved by more kitchen volunteers. Don't get me wrong, more volunteers are very good -- I'm scared of even saying what I just said for fear that it makes people think there's no need for them in the kitchen. More kitchen volunteers means people can tag in and give others who were working the kitchen some time off. But they don't increase the throughput of the kitchen because we only have so much table space to work on, so many knives and cutting boards, and so much surface on the grills.

So I'd really like to vote for a larger proportion of lower-maintenance meat.

 

The prep and cook time is going down as we have the same folks cooking and prep...hot-dogs are fine if they have bacon on them..

On Sat we had to stall some cooking so the meat cutters could catch up, plus some added meat was put on a grill when we were ready to break it down as the other one was done around 5:30ish.

~worm~

 

Agree about the lower-maintenance meat.

We'll need some of us to set up early enough not only to get the grills going, but even more importantly, we need to have the serving area set up for members to drop off their offerings, the beer and soft drinks iced and ready.

And we need to scour lot 8 to gather stray trash cans just in case we get a mob.

I think a few of us are going to have to forego the march in order to prepare.

 

Yeah, that's the thing now -- the new grills make the raw table the biggest choke point.

I took all the knives home with me to get them re-sharpened this week. They were sharpened at the beginning of the season; but they're getting a lot more use than the average home kitchen knife, and they aren't being steeled regularly.

Perhaps some of the raw meat can get cut up (and put back in a cooler) before the trip down to Lincoln Park.

Chico, will there be some folks staying behind for security reasons, to watch stuff?

 

i'm sure we could get the stadium to send some guys out to watch the thing, maybe even mpd. that would cut down on the number of our guys that need to stay, we only need one or two to watch them.

i'd be happy to volunteer, with my ********ed up hamstring the march is gonna be tough anyway

 

Amazingly, brats actually take longer to cook than these steaks do. The pre-cut on the beef has them pretty thin, so they cook quickly. But they're charcoal grills -- it'll take some time get them ready and some time to break them down. And the biggest choke point is the prep work, as said.

 

tell whatever you need me to do--i can arrange the stadium help if you guys want-- (i can certainly cut meat while i'm standing there if that helps as well) and i'll post up there and "guard"

 

If gates open at 2pm..prep will be done and cooking started early. Set up and coals were ready in about 40mins.

~worm~

 

Are you not thinking on going to the march? I was figuring that kitchen folks would want to go. Obviously if folks work the kitchen during the march time isn't a constraint.

 

I was going to vol for prep and get things ready for the folks coming back from the march.

~worm~

 

i did too that's why i volunteered. i messed up my hamstring so i'm not sure i can march the whole way, this way if you guys want to go i can stay back and watch over. i assumed you guys were going on the march that's why i offered that way i can still add value without the pain

 

I'd rather be part of getting ready so we don't have a time crunch induced cluster f^ck.

 

That makes 3 of us.

That should be enough to prep and watch over stuff.

~worm~

 

cool--if we have the three of us we don't need the stadium. i can help with food prep or if oscar/chico need me to do something else i can do that.

 

I'll be in the HC. I can go to the march or stay and prep for chow. Either way, fine by me. Whatever is best for the club.

As the elders have decided, the Kanuks are OK for our TG. Fine, I'll go along with a smile, but I draw the line at marching anywhere in my nation's capital under a foreign flag for any purpose. So, if the Kanuks wish to join in with our motley crew -wonderful - but if they're waving their flag on the streets of DC, I would just as soon stay back at the HC and cheerfully prepare to offer them our warmest greetings and engaging hospitality.

As far as food, if the estimates of a mob are realistic, I suggest the victuals with which we ended last season: hot dogs and burgers. This is no-slice, no-brainer, pure-volume grilling. I'm not a buyer, but I bet it's more efficient when considering lb/$. If we're looking at feeding masses numbering significantly beyond the norm, I think the best approach is to go for the most mass in the belly at the lowest cost and in the shortest time. Just a thought. Notwithstanding the main course to be decided upon, I will slice, grill, serve whatever is on the table (Worm: do NOT pass out on the prep table!).

I'm off my soapbox now.

Have a day to cherish.

 

i think the idea is to get as many folks as possible marching--i understand your concern with the flag but i'm assuming there will be enough folks you could move away from the canadian folks. but if not stay back.

 

Thinking aloud here, folks:

Theoretically, each one of the grills can cook 240 hot dogs, or 480 every 5 minutes. The hardest part would be ensuring that none get burned -- the first row will likely burn by the time the last dog is placed on the grill. To avoid that, we would need a minimum of two cooks per grill whose only responsibility is turning the dogs/brats.

Brat/chorizo/sausage surface capacity is maybe half that of regular hot dogs, plus they need more cooking time -- say 12 minutes (counting putting them on, rolling them, making sure they're done and taking them off.)

4" burgers can be cooked at 90 per grill, or 180 every 6 minutes. 2 cooks per grill, and they could probably load their own grill space.

We will need a crew of:

• 3-4 "cutters" (loading grills and transporting cooked food to communal table)
• 4-6 meat cooks
• 2 sous chefs on the Webers for veggies and cellulose
• 2 gofers to keep HK refreshed, run messages and evict members from HK that are getting in the way
• at least one person supervising the kegs and monitoring the communal table during every five peak minutes of the tailgate
• 6 people for clean-up.

Assuming the above crew, devoting one grill to burgers and the other grill starting with dogs and then two loads of sausages/chorizo would give us a maximum hourly capacity to cook:

• 900 burgers
• 960 dogs
• 960 brat/sausage/chorizo
• 4 trays of sauteed onions/peppers and
• 18 wood patties for our beaver friends.

With burgers/dogs/sausages/chorizo, the 12-15 Hell's Kitchen crew can feed around 2,500 people an hour within a half hour of set-up.

I don't think we can come close to that with carne fajitas, plus, the individual serving size is more, shall we say, intuitive. I'll talk to el jefe.

We'll use the grills without the wind breakers (unless necessary) to ease the cooks' efforts (one cook on each side of the grill). During the march (or the last third of it) we'll need a fire starter and someone to set up stations and the communal table.

Kegs will likely be the choke point and this deserves some serious thought -- any ideas?

So as you can see, Bootsy, we will need about a dozen volunteers. Don't be shy folks, step up and volunteer.

I'll post conclusions to this rambling treatise later.

GM