In
my humble opinion, the gathering needs more kitchens like it needs more
dogs, but for some reason, everyone wants to focalize a kitchen.
Seems to me that being part of the kitchen provides an amazing growing,
learning experience on working collectively and provide safe and healthy
food in the woods.
However.....
The reality of focalizing a kitchen goes something like this.
Unless
you're serving main circle (dinner circle), Main Supply won't provide
food for cooking. This means you provide the free food in the woods.
While some kitchens have a donation can on the counter for after people
have been fed, in reality most of the cost of food is born by those
running the kitchen. You'll need to provide pots and pans for cooking,
5-gallon water buckets for dish washing, filtered drinking water for you
and your crew and hopefully for all gatherers. You'll need to chop
wood, haul water and wash dishes in addition to cooking. You'll need to
make sure you provide sanitary cooking and serving facilities, keep
sick people out of your kitchen, deal with late night movies and work
your ass off.
If you've never plugged in with a kitchen at a gathering before, you
might think about joining your energy with a well established kitchen to
get a sense of how hard cooking in the woods can be before you strike
off on your own.
If
you're ambitious enough to serve main circle, make sure to be at
kitchen council so your kitchen gets some of the supplies (often around
11 AM near INFO). But keep in mind that even those kitchens serving main
circle only get a portion of the food they serve from main supply.
Sure late night zuzu cooking is fun, but it also is hard to work around
all the tripping hippies -- especially those who need baby sitting at 2
AM.
You'll also need to have some serious shitter movies going down. Not
only for your crew but for anyone who is attracted to your camp. This
can mean digging a new shitter every day from July 1 to 3 when the
gathering population swells.
When the gathering is over, you get to disappear your kitchen so no one
knows it was ever there. You get to haul your trash out, bury your
compost and fill in your shitters.
What do you get for focalizing a kitchen?
More personal growth than you ever imagined possible in a couple of
weeks. More stress than you can imagine and more people smoking you out
that you could ever wish for if you're kitchen is dank. You get to move
your kitchen three times because the US Forest Service keeps changing
the rule on how close to surface water the kitchen can be - play it safe
and go 500 feet if you want to avoid the move your kitchen game.
You
get people bugging you at all hours of the day and night because
they're hungry or thirsty. You get random dogs digging through your
supply tent and eating the food you just hiked three miles on your back.
If you leave your kitchen unsupervised by trusted kitchen crew, you
come back to a kitchen missing pots or oranges or a tarp.
The wonderful tarps you strung over your kitchen collapse from rain in
the middle of the evening meal. And above all, you get to have a
complete temper tantrum when your nerves snap because no one wants to
help wash dishes or dig the next shitter. Of course, you can plug into
an existing kitchen and learn from experienced family how a great
kitchen works. (Try the Ovens, Kiddie Village, Musical Veggies, Fat Kids, Instant Soup, Iris, Tea Time, and BARF to name but
a few of the great kitchens. Ask at Info when you get to the
gathering). Most kitchens welcome new people who are willing to work (the key concept is being willing to work).
It's a wonderful magical crazy ride and worth every second if you last. But
please, please, please read the
Kitchen Mini Manual so you don't get your family sick due to lack of proper hygiene. If you're not sure about your hygiene, ask the other large kitchens how they handled things
If you've every plugged into a kitchen, please share your words of wisdom.
