[SCA] Castle Schola
We had a very nice schola event this past Saturday at the baron and baroness' castle (hence the event name). The classes I went to were quite good, lunch was tasty (including a nice vegetarian soup), and the feast (cooked by illadore) was excellent.
We missed the first couple class sessions (it would take an awful lot for me to willingly miss Shabbat morning services...). The session that was just about to start when we got there didn't have anything that grabbed me (good stuff but topics I already knew); I wish I had noticed the last-minute addition of a battle-tactics class. I would have taken that for the novelty. But I didn't notice it so instead I ate lunch and talked with people.
Leifr and risiko gave a slide show on their trip to Scandinavia -- not the typical vacation pictures you might expect, but lots and lots of stuff from museums off the beaten path. It appears that in Scandinavia, like in the parts of Israel I visited, they are perfectly content to let people crawl around ancient ruins instead of protecting everything behind glass. That definitely enhances my experience of such sites. (In contrast, I remember visiting Plymouth Rock decades ago and being surprised to find that it was roped/walled off so you couldn't get near it. Also, that it was much smaller than I had imagined.)
After that I went to two cooking classes taught by a visitor from the Cleftlands (we had a bunch of people from Ohio, which isn't usual for us even though it's nearby). The first was on mustards and the second on sauces. Mustard might be worth getting a blender for; mmmm. :-) (A tip he gave: mustard seed can be gotten in quantity from Indian groceries. I wouldn't have thought of that.)
At dinner we sat and conversed with some visitors from Cleftlands. The feast, as I said, was excellent. It was all from Forme of Cury (except one sauce that was ~20 years later, Illadore told me) and it hit that rare combination of tasty and well-balanced and vegetarian-friendly (without short-changing the meat-eaters) and aesthetically pleasing and well-timed and a plausible re-creation. It had chicken with mustard sauce, roast beef (with sauces), tarts for ember day (cheese/onion pie, more or less), cheese, nuts, fruit, pickled vegetables, a salad of greens, peas, mushrooms, and more, with apple pie and gingerbread for dessert. We often eat well in this barony, but especially well this time.
This was a free event with a lunch and feast that cost money. I don't think we've tried that model before; we've had completely-free pot-luck events (usually though not always with a donations basket set out), and we've had events where there is a site fee and food fee (the usual event model). A (good) feast adds a lot to an event for me so I prefer that to pot-luck, but I also want us to do free events, so I'm glad to see this combination being tried. I wonder how we did on donations.
We missed the first couple class sessions (it would take an awful lot for me to willingly miss Shabbat morning services...). The session that was just about to start when we got there didn't have anything that grabbed me (good stuff but topics I already knew); I wish I had noticed the last-minute addition of a battle-tactics class. I would have taken that for the novelty. But I didn't notice it so instead I ate lunch and talked with people.
Leifr and risiko gave a slide show on their trip to Scandinavia -- not the typical vacation pictures you might expect, but lots and lots of stuff from museums off the beaten path. It appears that in Scandinavia, like in the parts of Israel I visited, they are perfectly content to let people crawl around ancient ruins instead of protecting everything behind glass. That definitely enhances my experience of such sites. (In contrast, I remember visiting Plymouth Rock decades ago and being surprised to find that it was roped/walled off so you couldn't get near it. Also, that it was much smaller than I had imagined.)
After that I went to two cooking classes taught by a visitor from the Cleftlands (we had a bunch of people from Ohio, which isn't usual for us even though it's nearby). The first was on mustards and the second on sauces. Mustard might be worth getting a blender for; mmmm. :-) (A tip he gave: mustard seed can be gotten in quantity from Indian groceries. I wouldn't have thought of that.)
At dinner we sat and conversed with some visitors from Cleftlands. The feast, as I said, was excellent. It was all from Forme of Cury (except one sauce that was ~20 years later, Illadore told me) and it hit that rare combination of tasty and well-balanced and vegetarian-friendly (without short-changing the meat-eaters) and aesthetically pleasing and well-timed and a plausible re-creation. It had chicken with mustard sauce, roast beef (with sauces), tarts for ember day (cheese/onion pie, more or less), cheese, nuts, fruit, pickled vegetables, a salad of greens, peas, mushrooms, and more, with apple pie and gingerbread for dessert. We often eat well in this barony, but especially well this time.
This was a free event with a lunch and feast that cost money. I don't think we've tried that model before; we've had completely-free pot-luck events (usually though not always with a donations basket set out), and we've had events where there is a site fee and food fee (the usual event model). A (good) feast adds a lot to an event for me so I prefer that to pot-luck, but I also want us to do free events, so I'm glad to see this combination being tried. I wonder how we did on donations.