SC - Crown Tourney feast

[Christina Nevin]

Well Crown Tourney is over, and Drachenwald has a new Crown Prince and
Princess - Count Sir Prothall Wolfbane and Countess Cecilia Jonsdotter.
Vivat!  What was wonderful was that one of my friends, Sir Arafel Christian,
who was fighting for his wife Lady Susannah du Bois, was the other finalist,
which all our Shire is very happy and proud about.

Anyway, the feast went really well. There were no major culinary disasters
apart from the fact the kitchen could easily serve 20, but not 85
(floorspace of 5' by 7' - I measured it) so we had to use the bar in the
room off the hall (with much running backward and forth), and the hired gas
rings died on us just before first course was served. Oh, and I left the
parsley for the Green Sauce in London (we were in Wales) so I now have an
exceedingly large bunch of past-it parsley sitting in my sink, amongst all
the unopened boxes of kitchen & catering gear (guess what I'm doing
tonight?). 

Everything went reasonably smoothly, although the Aquapatys ended up in
course 3 not 2 for some strange reason, and two gentles risked life and limb
by asking if there was any honey butter to go with their bread. 

Everyone I spoke to afterwards said they enjoyed it. Favorite dishes were
the Brewet of Ayren (cheese, saffron, verjuice & egg soup), the New Zealand
roast  lamb (which Genna cooked and  even I managed to eat some of- it was
melt-in-your-mouth delicious), the Aquapatys boiled garlic, and the jam &
mascapone tarts. People also liked the garnishes - the jellies were
decorated with marzipan roses, lilies and leaves and were much admired. We
had little pastry birds on the salad, with candied almonds as 'eggs'
underneath. Various other dishes were garnished with rosepetal pieces,
candied almond confits, sugar hearts, silver dragee balls, jelly diamonds,
and cloves and rosemary for the High Table roast.

Things I learnt: 
- - the amount of scheduling required for a 80+ person feast is about 4 times
as much as a 40 person feast - especially when you have exactly the same
resources for both.
- - never do a feast in a kitchen too small for the numbers (I knew this
already, but the experience just reinforced the theory!)
- - next time, cater less pottage - the blanc desirree and morree were eaten,
but people only took a heaped tablespoon each, not the 100 gm allocated.
- - yes, electrical hobs really do s**k as much as you remember
- - white peas = chickpeas (oops)
- - there is nothing more wonderful than having not one, but TWO, co-cooks who
know what they're doing and who you can trust to do it.
- - individual timetables and schedules are lifesavers - your mind will
automatically go blank whenever someone asks you what dish something is to
be served in.

I will eventually be putting up the feast menu, recipes, redactions and
other stuff up on my website. When I feel a little less shell-shocked!

Al Servizio Vostro, e del Sogno
Lucretzia

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Lady Lucrezia-Isabella di Freccia   |  mka Tina Nevin
Thamesreach Shire, The Isles, Drachenwald | London, UK
thorngrove at geocities.com | http://www.geocities.com/~thorngrove 
"There is no doubt that great leaders prefer hard drinkers to good
versifiers" - Aretino, 1536 
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