I love the LTH picnic. It's like the Green City Market BBQ, except more variety, more creativity, more weirdness, and more food. Do not take this as criticism, please.
But I've noticed something about how it runs:
1) Show up in the first hour or so with food, your food is snarfed happily and quickly and you get lots of response from happy scarfers.
2) Show up in the next hour or two, and your food winds up on a vast table full of similar things which are overwhelming to choose from or even contemplate. It grows warmer in the sun, and whatever is left is eventually taken home by somebody, probably, but if they liked it, who knows?
Cathy insists that there's very little waste per se-- almost everything goes home with somebody. That's great. But still, I like seeing food eaten at its peak, not after 3 hours in the sun, and for the people who made it to get instant gratification. Especially I like seeing
my food enjoyed this way.
I have a small solution for this. It's not a solution for the planners to tackle, it's not even a solution for the majority of attendees/contributors. It's just a suggestion for a few individuals to take up for themselves, based on things I've observed at other large, complex picnic type events.
It is: if your food could be easily portion served and passed out in little paper cups, on sticks or in some other fashion, why not do so, walking around with it on a tray and "selling" it to whoever you come across. If 15 people chose to do that, they would not only move their food faster (odds are, they'd be over and done with it in a relatively short time, and back to eating), they'd get more response from fellow LTHers, heck, they'd talk to and meet new LTHers which is never a bad thing. They'd increase the net interactivity of the event.
The downside is that, in theory, you're increasing the paper used at the event slightly. Still, I think this is a minor cost or even a wash, if you decrease food waste. Or simply increase the net pleasurability of the event.
Again, I don't suggest this as a policy. I simply plant it as a little bug in somebody's ear-- if your food might work this way, consider it and I think you might find you have an even better experience at this great event. And I look forward to trying your food!