Meals minutes: 2004-03-16

Minutes:

GO-Cooks [[Meeting]]
Minutes 3/16/04

Facilitator: Rollie
Present: Mary SC, Tim, Mark, Willie, Katie, Tammy, Mel, Amy N., Heather, Dale, Amy H., Tim

1. Intro
Mary welcomed everyone and thanked them for coming. There are some people who want to participate but couldn...t be her tonight.
Part of community work is the meal program. Lots of questions have come up. A long list of questions was sent out on e-mail.
Rollie agreed to facilitate to help us get through a lot of things quickly.

2. Warm Up favorite breakfast cereal at age 8-10.

3. Agenda Review
Lots of prior discussion about specific issues. But it might be more valuable to step back and look at what we value about food and eating, from the Cooks and from the Diners perspectives, then try to go from there to answer some of the nitty-gritty questions. The combine the two lists of characteristics, try to group, and prioritize them. Use a dot storm to identify most important characteristics. Then use this information to try to respond to some of the questions. Then break into teams or groups to try to make recommendations. Then report back to full group.

Suggestion and agreement to consider Cleaners perspective as well.
Suggestion to add Kids/Picky Eaters as a subset of diners.

4. Storm 1 ...Cooks... What characteristics do you want your food system to be like from your perspective as a Cook?
(Define brainstorm: ideas come out but they are not evaluated at this time.)
Tasty
Menus with broad appeal
But not having to please everyone every time
Proper and quality tools available e.g knives that keep edges
Quality ingredients
Equipment that works
Don...t bug me when I...m cooking (no kid distractions)
Proper organization of tools that everyone knows so things are put back so you can find them again next time
Reasonable budget
Affordable
Community-wide agreement about late signups
Enough food but not too much the right amount of food
Community norm about advance sign-up to help cooks buy the proper amount of food
Getting the menu out far enough in advance to help with the above
Empower cooks for what they...re inspired to cook cooks can take the numbers of diner sign-ups however they wish
Dependable assistance
Good information e.g. recipes for crowds, instructions for scaling up menus
Database for tracking how various things turn out
Instruction books for the equipment
Well-stocked staples
Use leftovers in flexible ways
Have fun everyone on same wavelength
Safety concerns about younger kids in kitchen and non-cooks
Safety guidelines for adults too: no open shoes, etc.
Skill-building workshops eg a cutting workshop
Whiteboard where cook can post that night...s menu, and instructions
Protocol for making announcements at the beginning of meals
More group planning and buying in bulk through GOOFs
Menu Brain-storming session
Avoid pasta three nights in a row
Enough serving dishes
A good system for how we deal with leftovers storage, safety of leftovers
Encouragement and training for the future cooks of Great Oak try to help the flow of good cooks for GO
Suggestion box in the kitchen napkin board! Write comments on napkins and pin them up
In student coops, there was a job that was menu coordinator handed in several possible menus (eg pasta, bean, rice, etc.) and then they would assign menus to cooks. This person also did the ordering. Requires far advance planning.
A big barrel smoker Texas style
Turkey fryers
Griddle
Structured feedback on specific meals to help you know what you could make better or change in a way that is ...safe... and not overwhelming
Free beer for the cooks
What about using alcohol in cooking? We...d like to get some feedback on this. Or is it a labeling question?
Food allergies taken into account
Could people cook meals on Fridays and Saturdays that are outside the norms, e.g. beer-battered shrimp? Or outside the budget?
How about Sunday brunch? People would like to cook this
...Cooks Gone Wild Nights...
What is our escape hatch for a meal that...s screwed up dial a meal call in pizza
What about pot lucks? Or have the cook provide a main dish and others bring salads?
Holiday meals?
Kid-centered meals
How can Cooks call for help? There is a go-cooks e-mail group cooks@gocoho.org
Cooks etiquette/ethics
Training in how to cook vegetarian or how to cook meat
What if I get sick on the day I am cooking? Wash hands a lot? Order pizza?
Norm that it...s ok to order in food occasionally
Could we know more about cooks so we know how to schedule them esp regarding veggie/meat preferences
Do we need to be mindful about what is cooked on meeting nights to make it very easy to clean up?

5. Storm 2 ...Diners... What do you want as a Diner?
- don...t have to arrive early to get enough food, hot or cold
- want to know there...s something my kids will eat
- create a list of kid-friendly foods for cooks to use
- ask kids group to brainstorm
- like to see organic (how it...s grown) and natural food (natural = no artificial preservatives, color, sweeteners how it...s processed)
- like to see variety
- we want a microwave in the kitchen
- would like to be able to submit feedback to cooks anonymously
- Beverages other than water
- Milk available for children
- Not too many over-the-top desserts each week dessert variety and moderation
Strategies to increase or decrease the spice to suit different levels of spiciness tolerance
- Diners suggest meals to the cooks group
- Condiment bar
- Cereal available for kids 24 hours per day, peanut b sandwiches
- Viable vegetarian entree every meal put as much energy into the veggie entree as into the meat entree
- What about meat eaters who want their needs met also
- What is our community norm for meals?
- Better balance of having leftovers part of common dining culture to have leftovers for tomorrow...s lunch
- Wants to make sure we don...t get sick when we eat washing hands, washing equipment (eg ...seasoning... the cast iron pans)
- Hygiene
- Clarify policy on late plates
- Permanently mark all of GO...s dishes, etc. so they come back
-

6. Cleaners Brainstorm
- need job descriptions
- better when there...s four people than three
- if everyone helps with clearing as they leave diner participation
- clear set up for diners so they know where to put everything
- clarify whose job it is to set up for clean up setting up bins and soapy dishes. Turning on dishwasher, turning it off
- Clarify what to throw away and what to keep
- Having enough containers to put leftovers in
- Get people to bring containers back
- Choice of cleaning supplies room for this
- Have someone to analyze the flow in the kitchen to help streamline it
- Environmentally safe cleaning supplies as well
- Checklist: this is what needs to happen for cleanup with buy-in from cleaners
- Have this group look at a list, massage it, and run it by the community but not for consensus
- Emergency cleaners
- Clarify distinction between CH cleaners and Meal Coordinators/cleaners
- We need consistent, clear directions about cleaning
- Do cleaners have expectations of how cook cook some cooks clean as they cook, some cooks make five or six courses, and others don...t
- Timing, and issues of how we use the CH eg getting ready for community meeting
- Potluck on meeting nights?
- Sandwich bar on meeting nights? Paper plates?
- Laundry clarification
- Proper tools
- Figure out how to make cleaning fun and rewarding
- Have them stand up and applaud them as well as cooks

7. Combine and prioritize

Five minutes left. Take these lists and cross-reference them, find duplicates and triplicates. Take that list and prioritize it, using dots. Use this as a set of core values for making future decisions. But keep in mind that there may be some important ideas that only apply to one perspective.

Have someone work on boiling this down so that next time we meet we can plunge right in. Ultimately we want to bring proposals to the community, showing how we...ve combined multiple perspectives. Also will want to try things and change them as needed. Re-evaluate on a regular basis.

We want our meal program to be successful and positive. We don...t want it to break down. Keep the meal program healthy for now and in the future.

Try using a blue wall to help with prioritizing. 1) do it from each perspective; 2) try to put it all together; 3) get info to everyone and let them bring prioritization with them to next meeting.

Have everyone identify top five in each category, and also make a note of which ones are similar across categories.