SC - Period cookshop at Pennsic?

[Catherine Deville]

Sadly, but expectedly, Margaret's Father passed away this weekend.  We plan
to attend the memorial service in Wichita on Wednesday, depending on what my
urologist tells me on Tuesday, but that's getting a little ahead of the
tale.

Following my successful bid for the Protectorate Feast, I went to get the
check for the budgeted front money and found the current officers running
all around Robin Hood's Barn avoiding signing checks.  The treasurer had
quit, one of the people on the signature card had been directed by Kingdom
not to have anything to do with the accounts, and everyone seemed to be
avoiding the problem of putting on a major event with a non-functioning bank
account.  

Since I was having the urge to pound a few choice coconuts, I left the
matter unresolved and went to my wife's family reunion.  Margaret's Mother
was unable to attend for reasons of health, but Margaret's Father came out
to the reunion a couple of times.  The family, singularly and collectively,
split their time between the gathering in the Flint Hills and the nursing
home.  It was a pleasant interlude and a few days after my return, a new
treasurer was in place and my check appeared.

I began current pricing of my budgeted items with the assistance of Baroness
Mairin, who spends a great deal of time following grocery prices.  I was
about to act on her advice, when I developed some back pain.  

On Monday, I didn't think much of it.  On the Tuesday drive home, the pain
folded me around the steering wheel.  Back pain which doesn't lock up my
spine is unusual, so I said, "I need to call the doctor in the morning."
Late that night, I stopped urinating.  Wednesday morning, I showed up at the
doctor's office just after they opened.  Two hours later, I was with a
urologist.  An hour after that, I was waiting on a CAT scan and surgical
prep.

While they were taking the CAT scan, the blocked kidney (my one and only)
opened and the surgery was canceled.  Thursday morning it was back to the
urologist's office.  My blood chemistry was returning to normal and he had
not been able to find the blockage on the X-rays or the CAT scan.  Friday, I
was back in surgery to locate the blockage and install a stint.  

I'm lucky.  This incident came closer to killing me than most of the other
dangerous and stupid encounters of the past 40 years.  There is at least one
more surgery ahead and an open question of how my health will affect the
feast.  It has already caused problems with my shopping.

I also have one other problem.  I'm short one dish -- Elizabethan,
vegetable, preferably green, definitely not spinach.  Anyone got any ideas
or recipes?

Bear