SC - Viceregal 20th Anniversary

[Lurking Girl]

Philip & Susan Troy wrote:
> "No s**t, there we were..."
> 
> Day Board:
> There was a day board, I'm told, I'm told it was a good one, but other
> than seeing scant remains of a chicken and a vegetable potage coming
> back into the kitchen, I missed it. Thass okay...

Bread, various cheeses, dates, pears, summer sausage, veg soup, chicken soup.
Your standard M-16A1 dayboard.
 
> On the tables were bread, honey butter, herb cheese and lemonade (again,
> think 20 years ago)
> 
> First Course
> 
> Platina's Roast Chicken with Orange Juice
> Sallet of Worts and Herbs

...green-leaf lettuce, red-leaf lettuce, chicory, dandelion, leeks, onion.

> Savory Toasted or Melted Cheese (Digby)
> (There may have been more, I don't recall)

Nope.  There were supposed to be sugared walnuts, but they didn't happen.
 
> Second Course (Formerly the Third Course)
> 
> Steaks of Beef or Venison in Sauce (2 15th Cent.) 
> Mushroom and Cheese Pasties, in this case large open tarts (Le Menagier
> via Pleyn Delit?)

Yep.

> Caboges, stewed with marrow and spices (2 15th Cent.)


> Third Course (Formerly the Second Course)
> 
> Buttered Wortys -- mostly kale, I believe, with

Half kale, half spinach.

> Buttered Pasternaks [mashed] -- our Provincial colors being Green and White

Although they came out sorta yellowish.

> Pies of Paris

...of which there were several left over; guess what Ateno and I are having
for lunch today, heh heh heh.
 
> Chamber Service/Dessert Board
>
> Poppy Seed Cake
> Wafers, largish (Markham)
> Wafers, smallish (Menagier)
> Shortbread

Also, Pears in Syrup (via Pleyn Delit)

> Gingebred rolled into little balls, courtesy of our own Lady Vika,
> which, apart from causing people to sing about Vika's Spicy Ginger
> Ba-a-alls ("put 'em in your mouth and suck 'em"), were absolutely
> wonderful! Not even a smidge of ooginess...

Gee gosh, chief, yer makin' me blush. :)

And who was singing THAT?!  Was that after I left?
 
> Overall, for simple quality, this was one of the best feasts I've been
> to in quite a while. I actually got to sit and eat some of it! My only
> regret was that, due to a minor emergency, I somehow missed the caboges,
> which I'd been looking forward to for some weeks.

The funny thing was, there was a H-U-G-E pot of it left, and Brekke had
one-gallon ziplocs.  You probably could have taken some home; I was going
to, but was rapidly running out of brain, which is why I left before I
became a traffic statistic.
 
> Sir Sirhan Ciani al Diabhlu, his squire, whom I've known for years but
> only by his mundane name of Django

You and everyone else...I asked Ateno what Djengo's SCA name was, and
the best he could do was "Something Japanese". ;)

> I expect Lady Vika could offer a better blow-by-blow account, when she's
> sufficiently rested. But this was a _good_ job.

Better, but not perfect--I didn't always know what other people were working
on at any given time, but here goes.

Lessee.  Brekke had wanted to do a lot more beforehand, but she was down
with flu, I was in Boston, and Nicole (Sean de Londres' wife--don't know her
SCA name) is newly pregnant so they were trying to keep her far away from flu
areas.  So as of about 1am Friday night, this is what was finished:

- -the Pies of Parys (frozen)
- -the Mushroom Tarts (frozen)
- -the gingerbrede
- -the bread, which was subcontracted to a local bakery
- -the shortbread, poppy cake, and wafers were being brought by other people

This was partially prepared:

- -the Platina chickens were parboiled
- -the roasts were cooked to, I think, 145 deg.
- -the chicken broth for the lunch soup
- -the pears for Pears in Syrup were peeled (ack ack ack ack ack)

So I crashed at Brekke's, both to help Fri. night and because I have a
van which could schlep all the Ostgardian kitchen crap (which would
have taken about thirty years to schlep in Brekke's Omni).  We got up
at 6:30, loaded up (we still didn't fit everything), picked up the bread
and a bagel each, and headed to the site...

where we got to sit freezing in the cars for half an hour until the 
autocrat showed up.  Sigh.

Got in and unloaded around 10am.  The chicken broth went on the stove,
we fished out the chickens which had been cooking in it overnight and
started deboning, the veg soup went on, and most importantly the coffee
was started.  (Not important for me--I don't do coffee unless it's 
cappucino-shaped--but for everyone else.)  Then we were peeling parsnips,
snapping the ends off green beans, and washing mounds and mounds of 
greens.

After that, it was cubing cheese, slicing bread and sausage for the
dayboard.  This was made more difficult by the fact that most of the
dairy had been left on the porch overnight (which was about 20 deg.),
so it was partially frozen.  Whups.  The Pies of Parys were set out
to defrost, and the Mushroom Pasties were set on a shelf above the
stove to do the same.

Then the cabbages were chopped, the marrowbones boiled in beef broth
(I think), and the chickens were seasoned and put in the oven.  I think
people were also making honey butter and hacking up the frozen cheese
for the Savory Cheese Goo at this point.  The sauce for the steaks
went on in here, too.

After the marrowbones were done, I got the job of poking the marrow
out.  Very oogy.  The grease felt good on my very dry skin, though...
Adamantius was working on the herbed cheese during that, I think, and
there was a procession of proto-cheese-goo heading in and out of the
microwave.  The chickens came out of the oven and the roasts went in.
I think this is when the pears were poached and their wine sauce
started.  The marrow got dumped back into its pot(s), and the cabbages
were put in.

By Court (c. 4:45?), I was in the back corner working on Salat fixin's
with several others, I think the parsnips were boiling, and people
were slicing the finished roasts.  The Cheese Goo was on the stove,
as were the caboges and the pears.

After this point, I didn't know too much of what was going on in the
kitchen proper, since I was working on the getting-it-out-the-door
part: putting stuff on serving plates or bowls, counting it out, etc.
Though I did notice that the parsnips were being difficult.  

We had a LOT of Savory Toasted Goo left, so we sent a small bowl for
dipping to each table, and _still_ had plenty left for kitchen
devouring--but some over-helpful cleanup person dumped it all. >:-(
The Caboges were not much eaten, possibly because by the time they
went out people were at the "picking at stuff" stage, and your average
feaster will not choose to pick at cabbages if starch or dead cow is
available.

I left when the feast was finished and they were starting to clear for
dancing, because I was ordered out of the kitchen and I was too tired
to party, so I have nothing further to report, except that a) the traffic
was surprisingly light for a Saturday night and b) I maintain that the
Cross-Bronx Expressway is the absolute worst road in all history, and
even the deer track that Broadway used to be must have been a smoother
surface.

Vika
who was very tired, but at least didn't have a hand cramp from too much
stirring like poor Diablu

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