[Sca-cooks] Spanish Feast after-action report

[Elaine Koogler]

Jadwiga Zajaczkowa / Jenne Heise wrote:
> Well, the Conviencia feast is over, I have most of my brain back, and it 
> went well.
>
> Here's what I cooked (see 
> http://gallowglass.org/jadwiga/SCA/cooking/conviencia2.html for links to 
> the recipes)
>
> STARTERS:
> Olives * (purchased)
> Lombardy sops (layered casserole of bread & cheese with broth) (bread, 
> dairy, meat; vegetarian version available on request)
> Sallat *
> Figs in Wine
> Mustard Sauce
>
> FIRST COURSE:
>
> Fish with Orange Juice
> Fried Millet Polenta (contains dairy; plain dairy free millet available) 
> *
> Cooked Salad of Lentils *
> Garlic Chicken
> Limonada (raisin-lemon-almond pudding) (nuts) [Vegetarian version 
> available]
> Parsley Dish (contains nuts, bread)*
>
> Beverage: Jalab of Lemon Syrup 
>
> SECOND COURSE:
>
> Casserole of Pork
> Rice cooked in the Oven (may contain eggs)*
> Modern Pottage of Chard, served with parmesan on the side *
> Moorish Eggplant (contains eggs, dairy) *
> Carrot-Cheese Pie (contains dairy) *
> Perada (pears in syrup) *
>
> Beverage: Clarea de Agua
>
> BUFFET:
> Food for Angels (Sweetened cheese with rosewater or orange flower water) 
> *
> Anise Biscotti (contains wheat) *
> Peach Dish (contains meat broth)
> Coriander comfits
> Quince Paste * (purchased)
> Fruit *
> Jordan Almonds *(purchased)
> Candied peels
>
> The most important point to remember is that the feast was underattended 
> -- 50 instead of 80-- probably mostly because of the storms this 
> weekend.
>
> 1) I was late getting to site because I got lost in *Lancaster County, 
> PA*. 30 miles from my mother's house. The only consolation was that I 
> was only lost for about 2.5 hours, and my mother, who works for the 
> county mapping office, was lost for 3 hours.
>
> 2) I had the best kitchen crew I've ever seen. In particular, Bruce the 
> Robert, who arrived on Friday night, June from Silver Rylle, Flora, and 
> Cariola (I can't spell her SCA name), who had never met me before and 
> threw themselves into feast prep with skill and enthusiasm. And of 
> course the same skill and enthusiasm was evident in the helpers who knew 
> me and had been guilted into it: John Marshall, Christopher Calhoune, my 
> mom, Sarah bas Mordecai, Evan da Coleao (I spelled that wrong), and 
> other people whose names I suddenly can't remember.
>
> 3) I should have remembered that I had no cell phone reception on site. 
> Sorry, Sarah, about leaving you hanging on the fish issue. (BJ's only 
> had 2 lbs of tilapia. Sarah bought them out of perch, and then went to 
> flounder, since she couldn't get me on the phone. It was good, though. 
> On the other hand we could have gotten flash-frozen tilapia at Glenwood 
> farms for $1.99/lb if I had gone to get my messages.)
>
> 4) Though the packing was mostly organized, I messed up some of my 
> planning. Most of the food went in my car, except that which wouldn't be 
> needed until Saturday. Most of the serving and cooking gear went in 
> Sarah's car, which wouldn't arrive until after she picked up Juergen and 
> found her way to the site. Except that I put the parmesan cheese (for 
> the pies) and the peelers (for the gourds and eggplants) in Sarah's car, 
> so we had to work around it.
>
> 5) Somehow, my plan of the day got lost in translation and wasn't among 
> my files when I packed up Friday morning. (Apparently I hadn't uploaded 
> it from my work computer.) Eeek. I planned to re-create it and had done 
> so partially when I got on site, but then realized that I had these cool 
> index cards in FOUR COLORS. I put all the things that had to be done 
> Friday night on one color, Saturday morning on another color, and 
> Saturday night on a third, then put all the plating stuff in the last 
> color. I arranged/prioritized each color 'deck' and then numbered them. 
> It wasn't the time chart I've always used. I found it helpful, though a 
> combination of time chart and cards might have been better. Still, I 
> think I'll use that method again.
>
> 6) I had forgotten that Friday was the first of the month, so the stores 
> were stuffed with little old social security recipients, as well as 
> being the day before a holiday weekend. I had to leave one store without 
> the stuff I was going to get there due to the 45 minute long checkout 
> lines.
>
> 7) Friday night, mostly due to Bruce and June's incredible industry, we 
> booked through the eggplant prep, the lentils, the millet, the perada; 
> and June even cut up the bread and de-crusted it for the lombardy sops. 
> We were done with everything but the pies by midnight, though I stayed 
> up talking for at least an hour after that. Sarah and Evan and others 
> did the candying of the lemon and orange peel. We got fancy with the 
> dried orange slices from Trader Joe's, and ended up making 
> pseudo-candied-orange-peel with them and using it in the pies, and 
> saving the real candied peels for the dessert table.
>
> 8) Saturday morning we got up half an hour later than I wanted. However, 
> things still went smoothly, except for worrying that I hadn't gotten 
> enough garlic or sugar. A shopping posse went out for cream for the 
> coffee and got garlic and sugar for me.
>
> 9) I love cooking in Lancaster County. When I realized I was short on 
> eggs, I put Bruce and John and Christopher in charge of the kitchen, 
> hopped in the car and drove less than a mile off site to buy brown eggs 
> at 80 cents a dozen. (Fortunately, the nice amish lady didn't have 
> enough change for the $20 bill that was all I had, so I started buying 
> baked goods until we were even. Pumpkin whoopie pies with cream cheese 
> filling are the food of the Ghods.)
>
> 10) I had precooked the Limonada, the Casserole of pork, the mustard, 
> and most of the lemon syrup, as well as most of the desserts. That 
> worked out well.
>
> 11) I love being able to use the stems from the chard (used in Modern 
> Pottage) with Gourds in the Murzawa (cooked salad of lentils). It turned 
> out well, even if most people didn't eat it.
>
> 12. Christopher is the King of Chicken Processing. Thank you. He handled 
> the garlic chicken with skill, even when it turned out that the fryers 
> didn't have any guts inside so he had to fake the innards.
>
> 13. Making the Clarea up full strength, instead of as a syrup, meant it 
> came out even better than the last time. Yum.
>
> 14. The comment from one of the Great Eaters of the shire about the Food 
> for Angels: "It's really good and I like it, but I kinda feel like I'm 
> eating makeup." Yup, there is this bizarre feeling that you might be 
> eating cold cream you have to ignore, but it's oh-so-good.
>
> 15. Flora and Bruce made up the parsley sauce. It wasn't anything like 
> any other green sauce I made, but people did like it. A sweet green 
> sauce... whatever next.
>
> 16. I don't like mustard made with broth. I had tried to make it with 
> veggie broth from base, but that stunk so badly we had to throw it out 
> and scour the container. Beef broth proved the trick, but I felt the 
> need to fiddle with it too much before we dished it out. Add salt; add 
> sugar; add vinegar; repeat... I never did feel happy with it.
>
> 17. Juergen's comment when we gave him some Casserole of pork to test: 
> "Wow, that's really good agredouce!" I was crushed at the time-- 
> worrying that it was too English instead of being thrilled that he 
> recognized the food type--, but it really did taste Catalan when we 
> served it.
>
> 18. I now understand why you put the eggs on top of the rice cooked in 
> the oven. It's to make a cover. Cooking the rice in casserole in the 
> oven uncovered did not work; after a lot of work by Cariola and others, 
> it was crunchy in parts and mushy in others. So we did another batch 
> since we had more rice, and covered it, and that turned out perfect. I 
> will practice the other way, though.
>
> 19. The millet, which we had put to congeal in full-size steamer trays, 
> was too wet to slice and fry. We tried several ways to handle this. 
> First, we dried the hunks in the oven. Not much help. Then John and 
> Bruce and others put on gloves and started forming patties on parchment 
> paper... John got the bright idea to put them in the walk-in freezer, 
> where they froze solid enough to cook. Christopher and John decided to 
> cook them in clarified butter so they could increase the temperature. 
> Bruce and John get the Fry Cooks of the year award for frying enough of 
> those patties for everyone at the feast! I'm sure John will flinch at 
> the word "millet" for years to come. However, the next two mornings we 
> took the leftover, unfried cakes, coated them in butter and baked them, 
> and they were YUMMY. I need to practice this dish until I can do it 
> instinctively, though. I suspect using smaller containers for the 
> congealing would have helped, too.
>
> 20. The site has gas griddles (burger grills) whose pilot lights stay on 
> all the time, and as a result the grills are warm to the touch all the 
> time. We used them as warming surfaces, so we could plate things in 
> metal bowls and have them stay warm on the griddle.
>
> 21. We were scheduled for 6 pm. At 2 pm we were plating the desserts and 
> the starters trays. (Thanks, Elizabet, for doing such a great job making 
> them pretty! I don't do pretty very well.) We couldn't start the millet, 
> the fish or the sops until about an hour before the meal, so by 4 pm we 
> were running out of things to do and had plated almost all the cold food 
> (thanks to Cat and Shannon, among others). I had brought my cut-glass 
> pear-shaped boxes for the comfits, and MJ brought me some silverplate 
> baskets that were perfect for the Jordan almonds-- tres chic! I gave in 
> and asked the autocrat if we could serve at 5:30. Nobody minded at all, 
> of course.
>
> 22. Christopher was going to sit feast-- which I heartily endorse, he 
> needs to see more feasts from the front-- so he laid out the fish in 
> pans, added oil and gave me directions for roasting it. Um. I overcooked 
> it-- the first batch was only supposed to be in for 8 minutes and it was 
> overcooked when I identified the alarm noise as the 4-minute timer and 
> pulled it out. But with the wonderful sauce Christopher had made 
> earlier, it was wildly popular and very little came back-- even though 
> the perch fillets had bones and we warned people about them.
>
> 23. Lombardy sops had to be held back from the Starters because they 
> weren't done. Turns out that we had forgotten to TOAST the bread, and 
> thus got this wierd cheesy gooey bread goo. People liked it, though, 
> when it went out in between the first and second courses.
>
> 24. Clearly, I need a hall steward. I was trying to superintend the 
> cooking, run the hall, supervise the servers (thanks Evan, Elizabet, 
> Svanhildr's mom, Shannon, Juergen and Cat!) and plate the food, as we 
> were down to 4 people in the kitchen and 2 of them were frying millet. 
> It got a little confusing and I sent the first course out immediately 
> after the starters. However, the servers were great, and several learned 
> how to wear the server napkin/towels and do the handwashing right then!
>
> 25. Between the Silver Rylle Serving gear, the gear I had brought (only 
> part of my vast collection) and Christopher's serving gear we had almost 
> enough to serve EVERYTHING in the feast to 6 tables of about 8. However, 
> having a Hobart dishwasher running all day and during the feast made our 
> lives MUCH MUCH easier. Industrial dishwashers are my friend oh yes they 
> are yes yes...
>
> 26. I can't believe how much they ate. At 4 pm I was looking at the 
> starters plates and muttering, "oh my god, they'll never eat again; this 
> is a complete meal for most people right here!" I warned them to pace 
> themselves but, well, they did try... Still, at the end of the feast I 
> had people making dire threats about wafer-thin mints... :)
>
> 27. It was only when I was cooking everything all together that my brain 
> really registered the intense cheeseyness of the feast. Evan, who 
> heralded the feast, had the feastgoers chorusing "and More CHEESE" as he 
> was announcing dishes. Fortunately nobody appeared to have a dairy 
> allergy and even the picky eaters got plenty to eat.
>
> 28. Because this was a high-authenticity feast and had limited meat 
> selections, I had used broth in most dishes where it was indicated. It 
> DOES make a difference: the broth-based version of the limonada was 
> noticeably thicker than the water version. Vegetable broth for the 
> Moorish eggplant worked out well, and I think light chicken broth did 
> add to the flavor of the Pottage called peach dish (we ate the dessert 
> leftovers the next morning with millet polenta for breakfast, and I 
> think they licked the dish).
>
> 29. The desserts, other than the comfits and almonds which went out to 
> the tables because we had cute little holders for them, were set out 
> buffet style because I believed that was correct. We skipped the fruit 
> because there was too much food already.
>
> 30. All in all, a successful high authenticity Spanish feast...
>   
Congratulations...despite the occasional "bobble", it sounds like you 
pulled off a delightful feast!  And, after all, that's the important thing!

Kiri

-- 
Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, it's at the end of your arm. 
As you get older, remember you have another hand: the first is to help 
yourself, the second is to help others 

                        -- Audrey Hepburn