[Sca-cooks] My first Aten event

[Michael Gunter]

I finally attended my first Atenveldt event this weekend
as a full-fledged member of the kingdom. It was a bit
strange as you may expect. I got to meet a lot of good
people and saw some wonderful sights. Fought in a tournament
and attended Courts.

The first night I wanted to do something special for my
lady so after we had camp set up I surprised her with
a dinner of rib-eye steaks, asparagus cooked in acidulated
water and butter with Ox-bow seasoning. Completed with
both cheesecake and Sucher torte.

I must admit that Atenveldt will take some getting used
to. The baronial feast that night was chili dogs, Fritos
and green jello. I hear this was a bit of a joke but it
wasn't deemed too far from the norm. Other groups had a
bit better I hear. I wish I could have seen what was served.

There was a tavern on site that sold various versions of
corned beef that looked good but I never managed to try it.

The dessert competition was a bit of a disappointment to me.
I had researched and redacted a Lombardy Custard with documentation
and presentation. But it was in competition with such delights
as Guiness Ice Cream, chocolate cherry cheesecake, even a mint
chocolate cake that was still in the store container. At least
the judges seemed impressed with the period dish. I'm not sure
what dish won the contest since they only announced the winner
but not what she did. I was also a bit disappointed in that
I found very few people willing to even try the Custard. I
thought it tasted wonderful though. One ray of hope was that
one of the judges, the Baroness in fact, recognized the custard
from her book "Take a Thousand Eggs or More".

Still, a disappointing start. Some good news is that there are
some folk here who are interested in period food so much that
they are holding monthly seminars on different aspects of period
food. I'm scheduled to host a class on meat preservation techniques
not including salting or smoking. So it will basically discuss
brining, honey, butter and potting techniques. It should be fun.

I'll try to help with the Coronation feast next weekend.

Yers,

Gunthar

_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp