[Bordermarch] A.H.S.S. Kitchen Thank You

[tessa]

Food prep/presentation was only an accompanying effort to the main purpose of the Ansteorran Heraldic and Scribal Symposium.
What a grand time was had in the A.H.S.S. "kitchen"! We all appreciate our event hosts, Their Excellencies Elisabeth & Santiago, Baron & Baroness of Bordermarch; and event steward, Lord Biau. 
[-My failing to mention someone who as any part of the kitchen effort is purely my own fault for not having been more aware, and for oversights here, I do apologize in advance.
 Please let me know, so I can also express appreciation to those people-] 
Guest teachers (non-SCA) were delighted and amazed at being fed according to the hospitality and selections for which Bordermarch is known.
Thank you to everyone who responded to the "wish-list" by donating ingredients or foods to serve. It is fairly well understood here that a pot-luck approach works really well 
with our particular group of volunteers. 
This is one time when it should NOT be said: "There were too many cooks..."  There were, in fact, an appropriate number of cooks.

Thank you, top of the list, to Lady Karen for your assist the day before with the initial kitchen inventory and organization, table arranging, and wash-up.  
Thank you to HE Elisabeth for wonderful pork roast w/ apple sauce and the basil/tomato/cheese/pear treats, and your special magnolia embossed cookies! All, superb!  
Mi-lady Magdelena, your cookies and more cookies were a wonderful side treat to go along with snack fighter biscuits and grapes. Lady Padragain, without peach tea or strawberry lemonade, and loads of ice, we'd have been fading fast! Your pasta chicken smelled and tasted so good! Thank you, thank you! 
Special thanks to Lord Olaf for presenting marvelous molasses basted meat, grilled ka-bobs, and meatball casserole (aroma holding everyone's attention outside and inside), and to brave warrior son Mi-lord Rogan who has great point control with the ka-bob preparations :)

Multiple thanks to Mi-lady Ida for once again bringing deviled eggs a-plenty! Lady Ellen, thank you for preparing chicken salad and bringing the pear preserves to add over the bread choices. 
Lady Libby, as always, your own potato salad recipe is some of the best ev-ar! HE Therese, your care to pre-chop all the green salad ingredients, compartmentalized, made serving the salad individually perfect for anyone who wished to add this or that to their own salad. And for bringing the appropriate serving utensils for the salads! Lady Pandora, the chilled pasta salad you provided hit the spot! Thank you! Thank you! Cool, appealing foods were so appreciated by the crowd on a heated summer day.

Thank you Lord Biau, A.H.S.S. event steward, for your time taken and talent given to carve the watermelon "Greenman"! Lady Karen, also, thank you for efficiently spooning out the watermelon meat so the Greeman could be carved and filled with fruit. The Greenman face was a dream I had without the talent myself to make him real; and on the busy day before, you answered my whim very impressively! Greenman, filled with cold fruit selections, became the centerpiece at His Excelleny Santiago's suggestion :) Thank you, Biau, also, for setting up tables, connecting a fan to shed heat from the kitchen, as well as running the entire class schedule, for taking hydration to all the speakers, and maintaining the coffee pot!  Additionally thank you for trash barrel emptying. This type of varied service is descriptive of you within the SCA, anywhere in the kingdom you go, and it is part of the reason you have been recognized for your service: adding help to the kitchen venue while you were responsible for the whole ball of wax!

Unto Her Excellency Giovanna, Baroness of Raven's Fort, for years we have been friends and cooperated on events together. I thank you for your devotion to your neighbor Bordermarch events with your labors and love extending into this event kitchen and field hydration.  
Unto Mistress Rhiannan & Lord Tostig, who came to teach classes, thank you for volunteering the night before to stuff the dates, along with Lady Karen and Lady Donnel; and Rhiannon, thank you for your slicing skills in your free time the day of the event between classes! What an example you are!

Unto the bread team: Lady Jillian, Mi-lady Melia, Mi-lady Mary, thank you for making a happy month of Mondays and Thursdays with me, baking a of homehearth breads for our guests. Variety included! The breads and spreads were a highlight. And, that we had "extra" bread was a "positive" when folks began asking if they could please take some home :) 

While Lord Phocas was making decor for all event hall/rooms, I want to give thanks in "kitchen t.y. notes" for allowing us a draped kitchen entrance so as to not distract from the classes.

Last on this list, but never last in my book, are my beloved spouse, Count Simonn, and son, Lord Zane, for, in addition to your class and marshal duties, 2 days of toting and hauling loads of kitchen goods and also setting tables and chairs, and plugging a leak.  And particularly my protégé, Lady Donnel MacGregor and your husband, Lord Alvin de Clermont, thank you both for supplying fresh cherries, fresh grapes, butter, and lots of ice. The both of you took every step I took, and more, encouraging me to sit a while. You assumed the dish-washing and mopping like a professional or military kitchen staff! Thank you Donnel for helping me stir up the artichoke bake, slice and arrange the gold, red star, & black star platter, and fill the dressing carafes; and Alvin, for helping me marinate/assemble the mango habanera chickens, and helping serve up the yogurt into cups. Also for assisting Biau by emptying the receptacle. There is no way I could have been as effective or as quick to task in the kitchen without you both! Thank you two for driving the distance to be hands-in-hands with me for this event and for your contributions to support Lord Biau, Their Excellencies, and Bordermarch.

As we say in Barony Bordermarch, "Many hands make light work!" It's one of our by-lines to go along with "In Bordermarch, the Dream Lives!"  
It is nothing less than WON-der-ful that so many co-operative spirits made a success of merely the meal and snack parts of this spectacular kingdom symposium! 
Pr'haps we can do it again sometime?

In sincere appreciation,
Tessa