[Sca-cooks] My dinner de-brief
Laura C. Minnick
lcm at jeffnet.org
Thu May 31 20:38:25 PDT 2012
Greetings all!
I thought I would drop in and tell y'all about my Interesting Dinner
last Saturday night.
First off, James couldn't make it. He had the kitchen and dining
dayshades, most of our table, and the second stove. He also had two
capable, experienced hands and a strong shoulder to lean on.
I borrowed Regina's pop-up, which at least gave me half the shade. I
borrowed tables and made do. I forgot however about the stove, until I
was already cooking. Oh well. I soldiered on.
I also discovered that the red wine was still on the shelf at home, two
hours away. This necessitated a bit of soft-shoe recipe-wise, but I managed.
And my daughter was there with the twins, who we were trying to manage.
(Getting them to nap did NOT happen...)
And despite wearing the brace, I managed to tweak my back. @#$%^@&!!
I fed ten. We had:
Roast pork (marinaded with rose instead of red, garlic, and some
pepper), a boiled chicken (stuffed with garlic, parsley, and lemon
slices, and boiled in white wine and broth), and trout (roasted in the
oven with the pork, stuffed with lemon slices and drizzled over with
lemon, olive oil, and a little white wine). I made a sauce for the pork
out of the leftover marinade and a little more wine, and a sauce for the
trout with shallots, white wine, lemon juice, and capers.
There was a pot of black-eyed peas, cooked with pork neck bones, and a
bit of kale. And I made a dish of lentils with carmelized onions and
lots of cumin.
There was asparagus, dressed with oil and vinegar, and a dish of
carrots, parsnips, and fennel, sauteed tender-crisp and then braised
briefly with chicken broth and white wine. We also had salad.
For dessert we had a cheesecake (the recipe of which I am still
tinkering), 'Barbie Tart' (a strawberry pie made of strawberries I
smooshed through a strainer, mixed with egg and a little breadcrumbs, a
bit of pepper, and a bit of saffron- It looks like you've run several
Barbies through a blender...) . A bottle of athol braose went around ( a
friend brought it- I didn't have it because the last time I had it I
ended up showing a roomful of people my Mickey Mouse underwear) and
there was mead. I forgot teh wafers I had brought, but I didn't have the
red wine for ypocras anyway.
No one went away hungry, and there weren't a whole lot of leftovers
either. I served late, which makes me absolutely crazy, but it was ok
after all, because court ran late. (I'm still not happy about being late
though.)
The only dish I really can't make a 'possible in Frankish late 8th c' is
the cheesecake, and that mostly because I'm still tinkering with the
cheese. The rest of it I think I could see on a Carolingian table.
I'm cooking a private celebratory dinner at Summits Investiture for the
new Prince and Princess (there may be other hats there) and I'm sort of
treating last weekend as a dry run.
Does anyone have comments?
Liutgard, still not unpacked
--
"It is our choices Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our
abilities." -Albus Dumbledore ~~~Follow my Queenly perambulations at:
http://slugcrossings.blogspot.com/
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