In which I might be biting off more than I can chew

One of the problems with liking good food is that I want there to be good food wherever I go. I realize that under certain circumstances my options are limited: e.g. when camping or staying in a hotel. But if I'm going to be in a house, with a kitchen and access to a grocery store, my inner foodie and control freak join forces and I feel the need to take charge and make sure that there's good food. (Or at least as good as I can make it in an unfamiliar kitchen with unfamiliar equipment.) This is part of what leads me to schlep two or three boxes of equipment and a giant cooler of food to Joshua Tree and cook a big meal, even though most of the other attendees aren't at all bothered by eating pizza or burritos for Thanksgiving dinner. The other part is that for someone who's not interested in having any kids, I can be powerfully maternal--especially when it comes to food. I love to make sure that everyone has something delicious and nourishing to eat.

But now these impulses might be encouraging me to volunteer for an ill-advised amount of responsibility. The Suitor and I will soon be departing for a week-long ski trip in Montana, and as I usually do, I am wondering what we're going to eat. We will be staying in a cabin, which means there's a kitchen, which means that cooking is a possibility. If it were left up to the Suitor and his friend N. (the only other person I know among the people who will be there), we would subsist on Doritos and microwaved burritos all week. Being the incorrigible food snob that I am, I reject that plan, and now the apparent power vacuum in the kitchen is sucking me in. My favorite apron might as well be looking at me with puppy eyes and saying, "take me with you!" But is this really something I want to take on? Cooking one or two meals for eight to ten people is one thing; signing up to cook dinner for 11 people nearly every night for a week is quite another.

My assumption is that breakfasts and lunches will be largely individual affairs, based on when people get up and what their ski schedule is. (That said, I will almost certainly cook eggs for people, and there might be a reprise of Thanksgiving's wildly successful pecan sticky buns.) We'll buy milk and cereal, cheese and crackers, and sandwich fixings. Dinner is where the real action will take place. Dinner for 11. I've done that once or twice in my life, but it was for Thanksgiving (an almost entirely predetermined menu made up of dishes that almost everyone likes to eat). What do I make for 11 people for dinner night after night?

But I'm getting ahead of myself. The first question I have to answer is whether or not I'm really willing to take on this project. The urge not to eat Doritos and microwaved burritos and canned faux cheese for dinner for a week is strong. Strong enough to overcome every rational objection to the idea of volunteering to play house chef for a dozen people for a week? I think so.

Operating under the assumption, then, that I will be packing my apron and my knives, I'd like to draft the brainstorming power of my little corner of the blogosphere. What do I cook for 11 people? I don't know what kind of equipment I'll have available to me, other than my trusty knives: presumably a chef's knife, a utility knife, a serrated knife, and maybe a paring knife. The cabin's web page says things like "a very complete kitchen for your chef" and " fully equipped with quality appliances, microwave, coffee maker and plenty of high quality cookware and serving ware," but who knows what that actually means?

Grocery sources are a Costco in Bozeman (we're flying into Bozeman, so I assume we'll stock up there just after we arrive) and, according to the trip organizer, a couple of grocery stores within a few miles of the cabin in Big Sky.

At the moment I have no knowledge of anyone's dietary preferences or restrictions, except mine and the Suitor's. I also don't know how adventurous the other people are, so I'm assuming that people are not adventurous. (My beloved braised kale with chickpeas and sun-dried tomatoes is probably out of the running.) At the same time, I'd like to keep things flexible so that if someone is vegetarian or just prefers to go meatless on a given night, he or she isn't left out in the cold with just a side salad. With that in mind, here are some preliminary ideas that might scale easily to feed 11 people:

- Roasted chickens, sauteed greens with cannellini beans and garlic, and (an enormous pot of) risotto.

- Make-your-own Mexican-ish stuff: tortillas, beans, cheese, veggies, salsa, maybe meats, etc. Could do fajitas, burritos, tostadas, tacos, quesadillas, and so on and people could customize them with whatever toppings they like. Very flexible, if not exactly hearty winter fare.

- Make-your-own pizza: buy a bunch of toppings, make some dough, and let people have at it. We wouldn't have a pizza stone, but a baking sheet would probably suffice.

- Chili, cornbread, and a vegetable. For the chili: Greens' black bean chili (which is vegan), and maybe Silver Palate's Chili for a Crowd if I have time/space. For the vegetable: salad? mustard-glazed carrots?

- Pasta, marinara sauce and maybe a rough basil or parsley pesto, meatballs for those who like them, garlic bread, and salad (or, if I think enough people will eat it, roasted broccoli).

What say you all? Additions? Revisions? Words of caution? (Including but not limited to "you're nuts!") Knowing me, I will probably supplement these things with a pear crisp, brownies or cookies or some other snackable sweet, and maybe a spiced apple cake. I do plan to do some snowboarding, but I don't think I'll be very sad if on most days I spend a few hours on the slopes, and the rest of the day in the kitchen.