My part in Adamantius' menu- was Re: [Sca-cooks] My Menu for Ian and Katherine's Last Championships, May 13th

[marilyn traber 011221]

Adamantius wrote:

> I'll give a more detailed report later, but as it began to get dark  
> and the wind picked up, let's just say the importance of a good meal 
>  began to loom rather larger in the minds of the event attendees,
>  and  I believe we did them proud.

You did, and for the first time I've worked with you, we weren't fighting an 
uphill battle. Everything worked the way it should have, more or less, and 
rather than Adamantius running around troubleshooting imminent disasters, he 
actually could get most of the sitting time he needed, and spend his efforts 
on making minor tweaks to make things better.

<snip>

> These went out on large, flat round platters, with the thinly sliced 
>  pork (it was mostly gray, only slightly pink, not really "ham" pink)
> ,  on a bed of watercress leaves, a puddle of rather thick Lombard 
> honey  mustard (this is redundant, BTW: Lombard mustard is honey 
> mustard) on  one side, and a mound of the sweet-and-sour compost on 
> the other  side. The salt pork was quite salty (not inedibly so, 
> apparently,  based on the mostly empty platters we got back), but  
> it was thinly  sliced, and if you alternated bites with bread, used 
> the mustard, and  the compost, or made a little sandwich, it pretty 
> much rocked.

In the compost lies a tale...

Because we knew the site had rather minimal facilities, Adamantius designed a 
feast that could be done with a minimum of onsite prep (he'll tell you more 
later, no doubt) and thus he farmed out various items to different people, the
pre-prep for the feast. Admittedly, he did the most difficult bits, but none 
the less, several of us helped with the pre-prep, and I drew the compost 
(dunno what it is about that man with assigning me pears, but all three 
feasts I've helped him with, I've wound up doing pears in one form or 
another). Anyway, at the 12th Night we worked on, he had asked me to smoosh 
some pears for him, and I did the product according to instructions, but it 
lacked both the volume he had wanted, and the texture he wanted, so this time 
I was gonna BYGAWD get it right ;-)

He gave me a recipe of fresh pears and root vegetables, to be parboiled to al 
dente, and then covered with a mixture of wine, vinegar, and honey, and 
spices, and he wanted 2 1/2 gallons, with the liquid boiled down to a texture 
somewhere between maple syrup and honey (I'll let him give the exact recipe, 
unless he wants me to send it from my records) and throw it in a bucket, and 
more or less fuggedaboudit, other than an occasional stir until the event. I 
did as instructed, adding just a dab extra of everything JUST IN CASE, got 
the liquid to a bit thicker than maple syrup, threw everything into Rob's 5 
gallon plastic brewing bucket (it was about half full, so that was the right 
amount) and considered that a good afternoon's work done. Carefully covered 
after some discussion of what would be best to protect it, that was non-
corrosive (used a stain;less steel pot lid in a large plastic baggie) and a 
painted steel stock pot lid on top to keep wandering bugs out.

Looked at it a couple days later, and the fluid was thin as water, dammit. 
So, drained most of the liquid out, threw it in a pan, added more spices (had 
tasted and it needed adjustment), honey, and vinegar (it needed just about a 
cup more fluid volume) boiled it down to about the consistancy of honey, 
threw it back in the bucket with the vegetables, and at his suggestion, 
swiped the canned baked beans and the applesauce from our cupboard, put THEM 
in baggies on top of the inside lid for weight, to help with the liquid 
level, put the painted mild steel lid on top, congratulated myself on a job 
well done, and forgot about it for a couple days.

Opened it up to stir it, and the fluid was thin as water.

Well, DOUBLE DAMMIT!!!

So, this time, I opened it up again, and I notice the fumes have gotten 
through the scratches in the paint on the outer lid, and rusted it rather 
severly. So, while boiling the fluid down AGAIN, I took a scrubber to the 
lid, cleaned up the metal (it wasn't anyplace it could impact the food, I 
just don't like using rusty cooking utensils- it's a blacksmith thing), and 
this time boiled the bloody stuff down (with the addition of every bit of 
honey left in the house) until it was so thick I had trouble getting it out 
of the pan. Poured it in, put the baggied stainless lid on top, the heavy 
cans and bottles, still in their baggies on top of that, and the now slightly 
(as opposed to grossly) rusted lid on that, and emailed A, who said he'd pick 
up extra honey to thicken things for the event. Checked on it just before I 
took off on Friday, and the fluid was again very watery. Duct taped it 
solidly in its container, with a trash bag over it to protect it from the 
weather, and threw it in the back of the P/U truck to take to the event 
Friday evening.

Turned it over to Adamantius, and figure HE could worry about the ever 
flowing fountain we'd generated in a 5 gallon plastic b\ucket.

Your turn, A, tell 'em what you had done.

<More Snippage>

> By the time we went to pick up the beef, we found that whole,  
> boneless, short-loin shells were on sale for $2.99 a pound, which 
> was  still much cheaper than the lamb I had intended to buy. These 
> were  trimmed and cut into roast-sized chunks and left in the care 
> of Phlip  the Fire Maid with no seasonings but salt (if she used 
> even that; I  didn't watch) and all the discarded herb stems (mostly 
> thyme,  rosemary, and scallion tops and roots) which were placed 
> right on the  coals to provide aromatic smoke. I left it all with 
> PTFM with tongs,  an instant-read thermometer, and instructions to 
> let nothing get over  140 degrees F (actually we agreed on 130 or so,
>  but we were expecting  carry-over heat). All the beef I saw was 
> perfect, and there was just  enough: we had about three ounces left 
> in the kitchen when we were done.

And this is the rest of my story. Now, lest you think all I did was deal with 
cookery, that's not true. We were actually on top of things, so that 
Adamantius actually got out to see friends and part of the event, and I got 
into interesting things, like playing with my dog, chitchatting with friends, 
discussing smithing with a wannabe, and telling him how to set up his first 
forge, and, high point of my day in many ways, being asked by my friend 
Brianna to assist in coping (trimming) her hawk, Clarrissa's, beak ;-) First 
time in my life, I've ever held a hawk on my wrist, and I LOVED it ;-)

But, back to cookery ;-)

Adamantius and I had agreed that I was going to take care of the grilling, 
because while grilling isn't terribly difficult, it DOES need a bit of 
experience to do it right, particularly with this sort of quantity of food, 
and a time schedule. I mean, there';s a bit of difference between grilling 
hot dogs, bratwursts and hamburgers until they're done, and throwing thewm 
to the hungry hordes as they're ready,  and feeding all the guests at a feast 
with a dozen of so perfectly cooked roasts/steaks, hot, or at least warm, 
done to a perfection of medium rare, which was my goal. And, would-be 
grillers, there really is a taste difference between charcoal briquets, made 
of sawdust and Heaven knows what and lit with hydrocarbons, which add their 
own distinctive flavor to the food, and what I wanted to do, which was use 
real, lump charcoal for the fuel, having lit it with newspaper, which, by the 
time the fire is ready, doesn't leave a taste.

So, Adamantius had given me a time frame in which he wanted the steaks ready, 
and I went to start the grill, maybe about 4 PM. Now, while this may seem 
like a long time before serving (at that point he wanted things ready about 
6:15) to do a fire of this nature takes time- you ball up the paper, heap 
some of the charcoal on it, light it, and as more catches, you add more until 
you have enough to spread out to evenly roast over a large area. 
Unfortunately, the wind satarted kicking up, and not only was I having a hard 
time getting things lit, but I discovered I needed to secure the shelter I'd 
put up over the grill (it had looked like rain going in, and it's hard to 
grill soggy steak/roasts with soggy charcoal). After securing the shelter, I 
decided a little liquid accelerant was called for, and, being a chirurgeon, 
added some rubbing alcohol. That still didn't look like it was going to do 
it with the wind being annoying, so, since Lady Brianna (of the hawk) needed 
her husband to bring her cloak, I (reluctantly) asked her to ask him to bring 
some charcoal lighter fluid.

No sooner had we hung up, than the wind decided to cooperate, and the 
charcoal caught, so I nursed the fire, until I had the bed of coals I wanted, 
got the steaks (Souage, my Husky, very generously offered to pre-wash the 
sheet pan they had been on) and threw them on.

Checked with Adamantius for timing, and started grilling, with a time in 
mind. At this point, a gentleman who has helped me before (durnit, I forgot 
his name again- A? with the leather piece on him?), offered his services, so 
I could relax, and let him putz, under, of course, my supervision (meaning I 
could sit down and watch, which, after having spent most of the day walking 
around on macadam, I appreciated).

While this was being worked out, the weather was cold enough, that they 
decided to move the feast into the barn, and, unbeknownst to us, they needed 
to award all the championships, and starting at 6 PM, which is when we had 
intended to start serving, are doing the court thing, and, OK, Adamantius 
hears "Five minute court". HA!!!!

Meantime, I'm going down, sending messengers to check yet again, as Court 
continues. Poor Adamantius even walked up the hill to the grill to check with 
me, because instead of cooking as I had planned, I'm juggling live coals, 
steak/roasts, and grill levels, to keep them cooking, albeit ever more 
slowly, but still keep the rare to medium rare, which was our goal.

It was an interesting project...

However, When I finished and trayed them, they were all at least warm, and 
every one was showing a temp between 130 and 140, Adamantius' target. The 
seasoning was as he described- nothing but real, hardwood charcoal, assorted 
herbs and stems (parsley, scallions, rosemary, and thyme- Simon and Garfunkle 
didn't get it quite right). NO salt was added during the grilling- it hardens 
the surface and dries out the meat, which you don't want to do considering 
how I was searing it to start (and A, if I hadn't had to keep putzing, you'd 
have had the grill marks you wanted, but I had to keep moving the meat too 
much, to deal with the timing- feel bad about that). Saltaholics can indulge 
AFTER I've finished grilling ;-)

But, I gave Our Viceroy Hel about Court- told the autocrat quite loudly in 
his hearing (during cleanup), that if I had realized he wanted charcoal 
instead of steak, I'd have saved myself a whole lot of trouble, and just 
opened and served the bag, instead of going to all the trouble of grilling 
the steaks ;-)

And, another of our members was assisting. Our wonderful book pusher, Devra, 
was there and helping. At events, I'll periodically throw her out of her 
booth so she can eat and at least see part of the event, and she paid me 
back, bless her, when I came in from the grillathon, making sure I got fed, 
and, as usual, helping make the world a pleasant place to be ;-)

We musta done good, A, they not only gave us all the Provincial Award, the 
Sea Star, but they ALSO called us out again to thank us, and they were 
enthusiastic about it ;-)

Now... there are some folks forever wanting pictures of various doings, and 
as it happens, quite a few are up from the event, thanks to our own Mistress 
Andrea at:

http://s80.photobucket.com/albums/j175/ostgardr/?start=0

On the first page, second row, you'll see two of Adamantius and one of my 
back, with the hairless gentleman with whom I was discussing smithing. The 
last in that row is a good shot of Devra's back ;-) Then, on the third page, 
starting in the 7th row, there's good pictures of me, my friend Brianna, and 
her loverly hawk, Clarissa, with various shots of the coping process. If you 
wanna know why I'm a smith, look at the muscle flexion in my forearm in the 
second and third shots in that row ;-) Even foreshortened, that's fairly 
impressive ;-) In the next row, third shot (sideways, for some reason), 
there's a good shot of Devra watching ;-) And, in the next to the last row, 
1st picture, there's a pretty good picture of Adamantius ;-)

And, it was a great event, and a wonderful time was had by all. If those of 
you who live Far Way ever want to go to really fun events, please come to 
Ostgardr, and particularly Northpass. It'll be well worth your journey ;-)

Phlip