Our First Feast ... Amid Snow!

[dawn_felagund]

Yesterday, Bobby and I acted as head cooks for our first SCA feast. To this point, we'd served one feast; we'd never eaten at feast, since they rarely have enough for me to eat to make it worth our while. We were counting on our years of experience as cooks in a very busy family restaurant, plus our masochistic love of cooking complicated, multi-

Comments

[just_jenni]

You got snow???!!! But you are south of us and we don't have any and there is none in the impending weather forecast. My goodness!

Well, your cooking marathon sounds like it was a hella lotta fun! I watch Gordon Ramsay's TV programs (love them all) and your experience doesn't seem too chaotic by comparison. And the recipes sound delish. :)

[dawn_felagund]

Trust me, the snow is not characteristic at all! :D It looks more like January in our backyard that October.

I've been in my share of chaotic kitchens, and this was definitely not chaotic! :) Bobby's and my cooking skills were tempered in a kitchen at a family restaurant where there were never more than three cooks for the whole restaurant, so this felt like a vacation in comparison. It was a hella lotta fun, definitely! :D

[heartofoshun]

I hope you had leftovers to take home. I find when I make huge meals like that it is almost impossible to have any appetite when it is time to eat, but I love having the leftover the following day.

It snowed all day yesterday here also. And we had a party to go to as well. It was awful getting around Brooklyn in a heavy snowfall with all the streets filled with icy water and slush.

[dawn_felagund]

We could have taken leftovers but didn't. We'd done a practice run of the feast last Sunday for supper, so we'd recently had everything. We did take home leftovers from Wulfhaven's lunch, though! We kind of exchanged leftover with them: They took ours and we took theirs.

I saw your post about the party! :) I'm glad you could make it, awful weather and all. The costumes were lovely!

[angelica_ramses]

(*Exhausted just by reading*) All the dishes sound delicious. Were you planning to make the ravioli yourselves? My Italian grandmother used to make them when I was very little (time of the Lamps or thereabouts) but finally gave up because of the mess of keeping the filling inside despite having the right tool (a kind of wooden grid to press the pastry -does it make any sense?) and loads of experience.
The weather is really crazy, isn't it?

[dawn_felagund]

We were going to make the ravioli ourselves. We actually had a medieval recipe for that dish ... but we knew it would be difficult, and we were planning for at least 4 ravioli per person, times 80 ... and we had to conclude that our life just isn't in a place right now where we have time and energy for that. Next time! :)

And we didn't have that tool, either, so it's probably definitely good that we did not!

[dreamflower02]

Oh wow! What memories your account brings back! Did everything go off on time? Our barony was pretty good about either not letting court run over or having court after feast, but I've been to more than one event in which court really ate into the feast time! (One I recall in particular ran over almost 2 hours!)

I used to draw a little cartoon for our newsletter called "Life in the Current Middle Ages", and I did one showing three frazzled ladies in kitchen garb congratulating themselves on getting everything ready right on time. Then the herald shows up to inform the head cook that court is running over. She runs off screaming in the last panel, while the clueless herald is going "What's the matter with her?"

Anyhow, sounds like y'all had a good time-- and a good attendance in spite of the weather! The real question is: given time to recover, would you do it again? *grin*

[dawn_felagund]

We'd definitely do it again! Bobby and I discussed that question over breakfast this morning (which we did not cook ... we decided to go out today! :D) and both agreed that we would. It's really something that we love to do, and the group we worked with were all friends and fun to work with

[dreamflower02]

LOL! I love your tradition! My barony was pretty strict about Baronial court, but occasionally we'd run a little over if Royals were there and wanted to hold court too.

The two hour one was in a neighboring barony, hosting a coronation. There was apparently a lot more shtick than anyone thought about. People can get so carried away with their shtick. They had a lot of people leaving before court had ended.

I really enjoyed being a "feastcrat", and probably would do it again if I ever become active again.

[dawn_felagund]

Admittedly, I don't attend many SCA events. I try to hit the nearby ones. So I've not been to many courts, but one that runs over two hours?! Yikes! The longest I remember was (also a baronial cum royal court) two hours total, and there were three peers elevated during it, so it wasn't without reason.

[engarian]

I had no idea you were that heavily involved in SCA, but what a nice feast you put on. I used to cook for a lot of people and it was a kick. But maybe that's one of the reasons why I don't cook at all now. I'm glad that things went off well for you and that you had a good turnout despite your unseasonable weather.

- Erulisse (one L)

[dawn_felagund]

Bobby and I got involved in SCA about four years ago. The funny thing is that we got involved for him: He wanted to take up medieval-style combat, and the SCA was a good "in" for that. I went along for the ride, so to speak; with my love for all things artistic, I thought I might like to "learn how to write prettily," like the medieval scribes did

[engarian]

Although I like many aspects of SCA, in many other ways they are so structured that they make me uncomfortable. I have friends who are part of it, though, many who joined for the same reason as Bobby did.

I don't cook any more, but really enjoyed it when I cooked for a multitude. Cooking for two, especially when my DH criticizes anything I cook, lost its ambiance a long time ago :-)

- Erulisse (one L)