[Sca-cooks] Taking a Break from Pennsic

[Elise Fleming]

Greetings, all.  After a week at Pennsic, I'm home (in air
conditioning!!) for a night and half a day.  With heat indices of
around 106 and 108, the battle field was closed, culminating in a
final day with a heat index of 118/119.  I spent the afternoon lying
down with ice on various parts of me.  There were nearly 5000 people
on site when I left Friday afternoon.  A wind storm had blown down a
few structures the night before, but the thunderstorms that should
have wet us were rather feeble.  Also when I left, the class count
was 1199 and rising.

The bread baking class instructor sends a loaf of his bread (and
homemade jelly or preserves) to A&S when his representative arrives
to collect the students to take them back to his camp for the class.
Much appreciated!  There's been talk (mostly instigated by me) that
next year someone (not me) should lead a Tour of Pennsic Kitchens
class.  General chat about camping kitchens followed by seeing some
of the really intriguing setups.  Also one on Pennsic Showers,
Inside Pennsic Tents, Pennsic Gates, Pennsic Structures...

As A&S Coordinator, I can't always get away from the Point to get
food, and with the heat I don't always feel hungry.  Arundel, a cook
and brewer from the Midrealm, was chatting with me at the Point and
complaining that he had leftovers which he'd rather not have.  So,
he brought me a lovely lunch snack (on the 118+ heat index day) of a
vegetable frittata, some sort of herbed potatoes, a fruit compote,
and a pork roast covered with grains of paradise.  One of my local
group's camps had salmon one night, lamb another and so on.
Ealdred, the super-talented cook (and mundanely a physician who
teaches classes about heart-healthy foods), has a lovely kitchen
setup with just about everything one would need.  Last year that
camp made a clay oven and baked a number of goodies with varying
success.

The booksellers (notably Poison Pen Press and Potboiler Press)  are
there.  Poison Pen is in a tent with four or so other booksellers.
Devra almost had to cover her ears to block out my involuntary
shrieks as I found a copy of Peter Brear's book _All the King's
Cooks_ and the Arabic cookery one.  She managed to relieve me of
quite a few dollars.  I even succumbed to purchasing two German
language cookery books - and I don't know German.  I passed up the
one in Fractur that is a facsimile of a period book.  Managed to get
Vincente Cueca's Catalan translation from Alban.

They are still expecting some 13,000 (!) people this year.  We will
be cheek-by-jowl by next weekend.  Enjoy any cool air you may have.
I'm back off to sweat at Pennsic!

Alys Katharine