SC - Things that affect cooking

[Morgan Cain]

WyteRayven at aol.com wrote:
> 
>
> I have been looking around at various ways to do
> lighting. Particularly, lighting for cooking. I could bring lots of
> candles, but I would prefer to get something that puts out a bit more
> light. One of the places that I have been looking at is Lehmans
> (http://www.lehmans.com/). They have some olive oil lamps that, while
> not period, look like they would provide fairly good light.
> 
> Has anyone had experience with these? Do the indeed put out a good
> amount of light? Is there a better inexpensive source of lighting?

I have never used their lamps, but I experimented with oil lamps last year,
because we needed overhead light in our dining pavilion (it sucks to have
flame on the table--usually they end up right at eye level so you can't
see a damn thing else), didn't want electricity, and _really_ didn't want
to be picking candle wax out of the hair.

After much Florilegium delving, I came up with the idea of using a
smallish glass bowl, not unlike a fish bowl, easily found at craft
stores.  I filled it halfway with olive oil (doesn't flash), procured
floating wicks from an Eastern Orthodox church supply site, and tested
the mechanism at home.  That was fine.

To suspend the thingy, I thought one of those braided rope wossnames
that are used to hold plant pots (you know, the ones that sort of
cradle the pot and come down in a tassel underneath) would do, since
the flame was well below the level of the bowl.  It worked for two
nights of careful supervision, but the third night the heat managed to
burn its way through the rope.  Oops.  This was why I used olive oil;
it fell on the table and oil went everywhere, but the oil extinguished
the flame.  (No Scadians were harmed in the making of this motion
picture.)

At Pennsic, I found among the merchants a lamp of similar design, only
they have a rounded-cylinder glass bit suspended from a varnished wood
plate which is then hanging from three chains.  That was a bit better.

I should point out that the light from either of these was not
particularly bright, but one can always make up for that in quantity.

I also purchased, from the church site, the lamp which is _supposed_
to go with those wicks, which is silver (well, probably tin or nickel
or something) and glitzy.  I thought it would be cool to have a whole
bunch of those, but they're like $25/each.  It's very small, and the
oil reservoir is about the size of a votive.  Nifty, though.

HTH, etc.

Vika
who _really_ wants a 30-candle chandelier, but not in a Pennsic windstorm