This is a shorter faster version of what was a very good letter. Which I lost on my computer. Boom. Gone. > The meeting went well, mostly it dealt with the visuals we as 4 little > restaurants on one "square" project,the theme is going to be primeval, > with fire water eat and air visualizations; we all put in our two cents > worth. For fire visulalizations, I always have huge containers of self serve hot sauce on the counters. It's pretty cheap and draws lots of people back to the booths. Hot sauce cultists!!! > Our name was more or less vetoed, as too soft I think, no worries > we'll think of something, in dutch probably, soon. get a dictionary I tell you. Good Smells Pagoda is a perfect name! But... How about Good Smells Invasion? That's harder! > The most expensive rest. on the whole terrain is next to us, it will > serve japanese dishes and will ask 8 coins (8 x 3,--) per dish. The > other 2 rest. are the cantina with tapas about our range, Aaron 4-5 > coins and the berber tent which has moderate and some highbrow things > like champagne cocktails 4-5-6-coins. Wow! Is that it? There must be a bunch of small places? Where are 55,000 people going to eat? At our place, I guess! > How hot are the burners, I'll have to rent one and try one of our > dishes out on it, is booked under things to do ..... Get a big pot. Fill it with water. How long to boil? SO if you tell me what kind of pot you used (eg 10 litre aluminium w/ 6 litres water at room temperature -- 6 minutes to boil). Then I will know exactly what we have. Do it both with a lid and with no lid. > Yes cantonese stir-fry , 5 coins I suggest, If you think that is not too much, then "YAHOO!" Sure, five is fine... wonderful... > can we make the sauce prior > to the festival and store it in pails with lids ? without > refrigeration? Seems so. I think it is much easier to just mix it there. A 20 litre bucket goes a long long long way. > Chicken garlic and singapore vermecelli, chickpea -red onion, yes, but > harissa no, that's the arab tents domain , instead thai cabbage salad ? > eggpotatoe yes, ok no pita's at night,but lets go for something they > can't resist. I was going to suggest pakoras again, but I think that should be in Tent, not Pagoda So something they can't resist? I'll think about it real hard! ALso, what are your thoughts on some premade thing we can buy for a guilder and sell for a token? Something fairly durable and well packed. Gum? Chips? Cookies? How about cookies? nice big cookie for a token? And we need something sweet. What do you think? > To process f.i. ginger and garlic do we need big food processors, how > many, I'll also ask if the factory can do it. Just two large home style processors are fine. GInger, green onion, that's it. Maybe garlic, but I use mostly dried garlic flakes (size of almond flakes). > The arab neighbour is a friend who very much wants me to do all the > overall managing of the kitchen and kitchen crew, like hiring them, > deciding and calculating on the amounts needed and what to put on the > menu.She's doing the serving bit with her own serving crew, their > concept is different : open berber tents with colourfull matrasses to > lie down on, so.... much more cleaning up to do. > The berber tent will be and is already a project of my own , the cooks are > being interviewed and personel being hired, at the festival I will have to do > telephonegophering for them as well as for our toko, I'm fixing up a caravan > to use as resting place and as office for that matter. I'll be happy to share > the income I get from that tent with you, since it will mean that I have to > spend time on their behalf as well. Well I really hope that you are not taking on too much. In one reality, to take on two huge new and difficult projects at the same time is lunacy. But you seem to have that non- stop energy, and we both know what we are doing, so... What would be best is if we could somehow co-ordinate the two kitchens. Make the staff a little more interchangable and somehow link deliveries etc... Do you think you can come up with thirty people who are really good? And at least ten of them should be really really good -- people you can trust to just do it, figure out solutions themselves, people who are honest, smart, people who pay attention!, people you know will do the job even if you are not there! AND NOW I TELL YOU SOMETHING ELSE. SO HEAR ME!... The key to this festival is going to be delivery and supply lines. Eight woks, eight rice cookers, easy recipes, already some good staff, boom. Easy enough. BUt a real problem (and especially with doing a second booth) is going to be making sure we can get the food to the site. No matter what! Two booths each doing four times what my festival booth does -- Lots of stuff to get moved, Marion. It feels like we need two crews with large vans ready most of the weekend to keep us supplied. Huge quantities of food. And this leads to the other problem. Last minute food ordering. OK OK We can easily plan for 11,000 meals. In fact, it is already done! What happens if we sell out 11,000th meal at Saturday noon? Or Even Sunday noon? If we can understand and gauge this point where 11,000 meals actually is, then we have to have meat and vegie providers who will do a last minute 200kg (or 300kg, or 600) order. And we have to be able to get that stuff to the site easily and safely (and without ME carrying it! Ha!) The difference in payoff between 11,000 meals and say 17,000 meals is absolutely huge. My guess is that it would be double the profit for us. So if we don't have access to extra ingredients (without being commited to buying until the last minute), then we may be kicking ourselves even though we have twenty thousand guilders in our pockets. And lots of cellular phones. So we can call a driver in the city and say "Emergency, you have to.... " whatever. Are the cut-vegie providers going to deliver our first order (thursday? friday?). Are they open Saturday afternoon? Sunday? How long do they need to prepare orders? If closed, could they leave someone there for a Saturday night or Sunday am pickup? > I might ask you in the near future for some lekkere recepies from the middle > east- marrocco-, since you allways burst with ideas. Well, Yah. I am a little burster, aren't I! So if we are doing the Morrocan as well, that's easy. First, it doesn't have to be fully authentic and actual Morrocan dishes. They just have to sound right. OK OK For TENT: Harissa Vegies, of course Chickpea Onion salad (and Pagoda does Thai Cabbage Salad) or Tabouli (And Pagoda could keep the chickpeas) or both. Pakoras -- call them "North African Fritters" -- onion and green pepper pieces in a chickpea flour, yoghurt, cumin, salt, pepper batter. Serve with a simple tamarind or yoghurt sauce. I think a big BBQ with thin wide slices of nicely marinated pork would be perfect. Just make the meat spiced a little Muslim. Easy. Thin pork, garlic, pureed onion, lemon juice, oregano, cumin, nutmeg, salt, pepper. Mix really well, and after half an hour add olive oil and mix well again. Marinate. Bbq and serve with pita, onions, tomatoes, yogurt sauce. Or with rice on a combo plate with a little salad, and two Pakoras -- So maybe a Rice Pilau -- rice cooked with tomatoes, onions, raisins, maybe some nuts... The trick to this dish is that you have to mix the rice with the precooked mixture before putting it in the rice cooker. Couscous -- isn't it a really big pain in the ass? How about some nice rich bean dish? At serving you could top it with chopped raw onion, and some yogurt sauce. What is needed? Large tins of beans, large tins of tomatoes, onions for stir-frying, (and onions for topping), garlic, spices... Just some rich blend of spices -- very much like a Mexican chilli but with a more Middle Eastern touch. In Egypt they have 'Ful Medamas' for example... I remember. They top it with chopped onions, chopped tomatoes, and a spoonful of cottage cheese -- Marion, is that a regular product in Holland? Cottage Cheese? And the bean dish could be cooked in a wok, I think. Safer and faster than big pots of chilli. As the tinned beans are already cooked, then just make big woks of sauce, and then dump in the beans. As the Tent already has a spicy dish, this could be really mild and lovely. And it could go on the expensive combo plate. And I promise you -- very easy to make. I make "Mark's Spicy Black Beans" this way all the time. One of my favourite dishes of that I make. THere! Your North African Menu, (as I suggest). All dishes should be slightly small so that people will buy a few different ones. So instead of serving Harissa Vegies with rice, People have to buy the reasonable priced (and interesting) Pulau to go with the reasonably priced Vegies. Perhaps 18cm plates? 16 cm? A real Middle Eastern Feast. So see what you think. Pork is not so middle eastern, but it is the best meat for this kind of cooking. I don't know if we need all the dishes, but they can all be made fairly easily in large scale and all, I promise, are delicious. === THE TENT === A MIDDLE EASTERN FEAST === Grilled Pork Striplets -- w/ pita and yogurt sauce -- 4 coins Harissa Vegies -- Zuchinni and more in this classic and spicy dish. 3 cn Rich Ful Beans -- topped w/ onions & tomatoes, and cottage cheese 3 cn Rice Pulau -- Seasoned for a Sultan -- with raisins and nuts! 2cn (3?) Tabouli -- classic cracked wheat salad w/ lots of lemon, parsley, mint, olive oil, plus tomato and more 2-3 cn Chickpea-Red Onion Salad -- w/ Tomatoes in a light tangy dressing 3cn (2?) Pork Combo Plate -- Pork, vegies, rice, 6cn? The "It's a good thing there are mattresses" Combo Platter - - a bit of everything on a extra large plate -- 8cn (pita not included) -- 22cm plate? 24 cm? pita bread -- 1cn (2pita - 3cn?) Killer Hot Sauces -- Free! === Also need something really sweet and honey-like. Big trays of baclava would be perfect. Can you buy 50-100 trays of baclava? > Back to our toko. Woktoko is that a name? 1) What is a toko? 2) I think I hate the name Woktoko. > First thing is to get one of these burners and try it out, talk to you > later and yes since you just reminded me in the e-mail, I can easily, > do all this and read off-line, boy with this extra memory, things sure > are smooth. I've always thought you were smooth! ANd now with extra memory -- ooh. > We'll just have to love our friends dearly. Well, yah! > Yesterday I was on the set working on the first try- out day of a very > controversial tv > show they are starting in coming september, the concept of reality tv, > locking, carefully > screened, 8 persons in a complex for 100 days, till the millennium, oh how > commerciallly thought, and filming them all 24 hours , plus a contest, big > moneyprize, > little tvshow with audience every week, the audience can throw one out of the > group, This sounds horrible. Have you seen "The Truman Show" -- a bit like this... But listen -- get yourself nicely relaxed before end of August. I hope that you won't be working on anything else for the few weeks before it? And a few weeks after too, I expect! Ha! Great. Tell me all your little worries and thoughts and problems and I'll try to figure them out over here. Even if you think that i'm too far removed, let me know what you feel about this festival, and we'll really do it together. Ok, love love love, and a kiss too. xxxCiao