[Sca-cooks] Caidan 12thNight Feast -- Recollections (VERY LONG)

[Jim Fox-Davis]

Well, it's Wednesday after my 12th Night feast, and I'm almost physically
recovered.  Sunday I could hardly walk.  I know Selene and Æduin slept most of
Sunday.  Some of you may remember my earlier posts to the list about menus and
issues with authority, but the day itself came off remarkably well.

We served:

First course -- "Little Delicacies" and "Pipesfarces" --(chicken livers in
vinegarette and deep-fried cheese sticks).  The chicken livers did NOT come
out like I wanted them, (I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't what
I wanted, precisely), and were easily the least popular dish of the meal.  The
vinegarette looked billious, through no fault of the preparer, and I don't
think I'll serve this again.  The pipesfarces disappeared with alarming
rapidity.  Selene's batter/breading kept them together nicely.  The only
problem was that we needed more time for frying or a larger capacity
deep-fryer.

Second course -- Fruit and cheese rissoles and scrambled eggs with apples.  I
had thought of pork in the original rissoles recipe redaction of Elizabeth's,
but as the day approached I realized that I didn't have enough dishes suitable
for non-meat-eaaaters, so this became dried fruit and cheese in a won-ton
wrapper and deep fried.  I made -way- too many to actually get fried on time
-- see note above.

The scrambled eggs with apples, which I was most worried about going over
well, turned out to be a big hit.  Either the lemon juice we squeezed
liberally on the apples to keep them from browning, or the spices we fried
them in, or the saffron in the eggs, really brought out the flavor and made
this dish a big hit.  Having a big grill for scrambling eggs helped a lot.

Third course:  Menjoire soup and/or (they had their choice) Green Broth with
Eggs and Cheese:  Both were huge hits, and I could have served more of both,
easily.  The bottleneck in burner space, though, almost ruined the green
broth, but we were able to bring it back.

Fourth Course:  Tourtes Parerienne and Mushroom Pasty.  My advance staff and I
had prepared these in advance and frozen them.  One of the ovens at the site
wasn't working, so I couldn't get things all warmed up at the same time, but
the dishes went over exceedingly well, anyway.  I had sauteed the mushrooms in
ginger and butter, and they were a solid hit, but either the cheese or some
other component of the tarte made people feel it was too salty.  The Tourtes
was a solid hit.  People liked the texture, the taste and the combination of
pork, pinenuts and currants.

Fifth Course:  Bourbelier of Pork and Spinach and Cress.  The Pork was a huge
hit, grilled to a turn and continuously based, then mounted as it was by
'knights' assembled by Æduin out of cornish hens and apples.  I had rubbed
down the hens with cinnamon, oregano and white pepper, and the taste was
popular.  We didn't have enough of the spinach and cress, but it was
well-received.

Sixth Course:  Roast Beef in a Lamprey sauce.  A solid success, made so by the
efforts of my grill honchos, Lord Æduin and Lord Ceallach, who turned and
basted and carressed these roasts to a delicious state.

Dessert:  Shortbread, nuts and various dried fruits, to be accompanied by
Almond Applesauce and/or Pears in Syrup.  The Applesauce was a dud.  Either I
didn't put in enough sugar, or the almond milk doesn't freeze well.  The pears
in syrup tasted fine, but everyone was so full we have a LOT of leftovers.

Operational issues:  Selene and I and Æduin and I have talked, and a number of
things have come to mind.

One:  Check functionality of site equipment a month and then again a week
before the event.  Our problems would have been mightily helped by making sure
the ovens worked.

Two:  Communications -- my fault, really -- I had copies of all the recipes
for each of my main cooks, and forgot to pass them all out.  Putting up the
timeline/spreadsheet was a good idea, but not everyone seemed to realize it
was there.  I also  should probably have spent more time supervising and
encouraging my workers -- I was telling everyone else what a great job they
were doing; I should have told -them-!

Three:  Serving -- we had a change of head servers at the last minute, we
didn't have enough servers, and we didn't have enough space to plate and serve
the dishes.  I also want better control over the serving dishes/platters, etc.
 These are things to be looked at for next year, when Selene's taking care of
Angels 12th Night.

Four:  Making sure dishes were HOT.  Equipment was part of the issue, but I
should have made better use of the chafing dishes and insulated carriers I
-did- have.  Part of the issue, again, was space.

Five:  Timing.  Due to the production bottlenecks, we were late getting some
courses to the table.  The second part of that, though, was timing of the
meal.  We were ready to serve the first course at 4:30, the scheduled time.
The Crown didn't enter the hall till five, and we were 5:15-20 getting
everyone sat down to eat.  That said, we still got everything out there by
8:15.

All in all, it was a successful feast, and I learned a few things.  I had a
wonderful crew and I hope they've all received my thanks on the Caid list and
what will be in the March Kingdom Newsletter.

My thanks to Mistress Huette for all of her early work and the inspiration to
do this, to Lord Æduin for ALL of his help, and as always and forever, to my
own Dame Selene for everything.  She was my right hand, my runner, and my
sounding board.  I hope I can be as much help to her -next- year.

THL Jared Alexandre Blaydeaux
Ex-Feastocrat, Caid 12th Night