Beggar's Rebellion
Mostly, it was fun.
The mosquitoes were dreadful. I was in the kitchen all weekend, so I didn't have as many problems as other people did, but I still got my fair share of bites. We lost the use of one refrigerator, and the main a/c pooped out, but we used the outside freezers, and Seumas set up a big windom a/c unit for us. The only time it was really, really hot was when we had both ovens going in the smallish kitchen, but it wasn't unbearable. It made us check on each other's drinking habits.
Dugal and I decided to drive back and forth and spend the night at home Friday and Saturday. We figured four hours of good sleep in the air conditioned confort of our own bedroom was better than six hours of sweaty humidity being dive-bombed by bugs. At least it was better until the a/c went out. It's always something, y'know?
The food stuff went well. I only had to explain to two or three paintballers that I was just cooking for SCA people. There were way more people onsite Friday than we expected, and it was warmer than we expected. Grilled cheese sandwiches became plain sandwiches. People seemed to like the build-your-own-sandwich bar. We had just enough to get everyone fed. I think we had a quarter loaf of rye and a quarter loaf of pumpernickel left over.
From now on, I'm making Glenheather Griddles for breakfast -- sandwiches made from oatmeal pancakes and sausage patties. We'll probably add egg and cheese, too. They were fast, easy, tasty, and fairly inexpensive. Very little leftovers after that one, too.
The sack lunch was a choice of cheesy egg salad or chicken salad sandwiches, pretzels, and butterscotch shortbread. All the lunches were taken (80 of them), and we had less than 1/3 of a gallon ziploc of chicken salad left. There may have been shortbread not put into the sacks, but we ate it all. =)
I hada great feast prep bunch: Dugal, Seumas, Robert, Nuala, Alys, Cairistiona, and a couple of others helped with various things, and I had the privilege of having Fionnabhair and Stephanie spend most of their day in the kitchen with me. They all made my job so much easier. We even had time to sit and chat! Woot! And feast was still ready a little early!
I was really happy with the way the feast came out. Not a lot of the orange-lemon cheese was eaten, but I'm ok with that; I can experiment with the leftovers. The chicken kabobs and the frittatas were pretty much gobbled up. There was a weird thing with the pork -- it had an "unusual" smell. I cannot figure out why. It tasted really good, it hadn't spoiled, and it didn't have any odd ingredients. Maybe it was just one of those weird culinary chemistry things. The people that tried it in spite of the smell liked it, so I consider that a win. And mostly, if the brownies weren't eaten, people took them home. THAT is definitely a win. I think the smartest decisions I made were to not force myself to make bread. I bought rolls for the first remove, and I had Nuala make a run to get tortillas to substitute for the flatbread in the third. It all worked out fine, and I didn't kill myself trying to get it all ready.
Those that got them enjoyed the hell out of the pudding shots. Must make more in the future.
All in all, it was a series of good things. But I am ready for a small break. =)
The mosquitoes were dreadful. I was in the kitchen all weekend, so I didn't have as many problems as other people did, but I still got my fair share of bites. We lost the use of one refrigerator, and the main a/c pooped out, but we used the outside freezers, and Seumas set up a big windom a/c unit for us. The only time it was really, really hot was when we had both ovens going in the smallish kitchen, but it wasn't unbearable. It made us check on each other's drinking habits.
Dugal and I decided to drive back and forth and spend the night at home Friday and Saturday. We figured four hours of good sleep in the air conditioned confort of our own bedroom was better than six hours of sweaty humidity being dive-bombed by bugs. At least it was better until the a/c went out. It's always something, y'know?
The food stuff went well. I only had to explain to two or three paintballers that I was just cooking for SCA people. There were way more people onsite Friday than we expected, and it was warmer than we expected. Grilled cheese sandwiches became plain sandwiches. People seemed to like the build-your-own-sandwich bar. We had just enough to get everyone fed. I think we had a quarter loaf of rye and a quarter loaf of pumpernickel left over.
From now on, I'm making Glenheather Griddles for breakfast -- sandwiches made from oatmeal pancakes and sausage patties. We'll probably add egg and cheese, too. They were fast, easy, tasty, and fairly inexpensive. Very little leftovers after that one, too.
The sack lunch was a choice of cheesy egg salad or chicken salad sandwiches, pretzels, and butterscotch shortbread. All the lunches were taken (80 of them), and we had less than 1/3 of a gallon ziploc of chicken salad left. There may have been shortbread not put into the sacks, but we ate it all. =)
I hada great feast prep bunch: Dugal, Seumas, Robert, Nuala, Alys, Cairistiona, and a couple of others helped with various things, and I had the privilege of having Fionnabhair and Stephanie spend most of their day in the kitchen with me. They all made my job so much easier. We even had time to sit and chat! Woot! And feast was still ready a little early!
I was really happy with the way the feast came out. Not a lot of the orange-lemon cheese was eaten, but I'm ok with that; I can experiment with the leftovers. The chicken kabobs and the frittatas were pretty much gobbled up. There was a weird thing with the pork -- it had an "unusual" smell. I cannot figure out why. It tasted really good, it hadn't spoiled, and it didn't have any odd ingredients. Maybe it was just one of those weird culinary chemistry things. The people that tried it in spite of the smell liked it, so I consider that a win. And mostly, if the brownies weren't eaten, people took them home. THAT is definitely a win. I think the smartest decisions I made were to not force myself to make bread. I bought rolls for the first remove, and I had Nuala make a run to get tortillas to substitute for the flatbread in the third. It all worked out fine, and I didn't kill myself trying to get it all ready.
Those that got them enjoyed the hell out of the pudding shots. Must make more in the future.
All in all, it was a series of good things. But I am ready for a small break. =)