Half the work.

I’ve really slacked off on updating this blog in the last eight months or so – there’s been a lot of unbelievably intense personal stuff going on, and although I’ve continued to be active in the SCA (oh, so very active!) I haven’t been documenting.

Going through some of my old Livejournal posts trying to recall a particular sentiment that was just out of reach, I finally found it, right after Battlemoor II:

Madhavi wrote… but there has to come a point where documenting your work takes up more time than the work itself, you know?

I replied… I’m trying to think of it as part of the work – that the output of the project is not just the physical object itself, but also the collection of sources, processes and developments, etc. So that the next person who comes along doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel.

I’m so bad at that kind of thing, the prep-work and background work, but I’m trying to forcibly train myself to be more cheerful and meticulous about it – as Elizabeth Wayland Barber points out, nobody wants to warp because it’s just fussy boring prep-work, but we tend to forget that warping isn’t getting ready to weave, it’s half the cloth. Documentation is half the work.

Over the next two weeks, I’m going to get up a series of posts on the Great Catalonian Cooking Adventure, which has eaten a large part of the last six months, and particular on Corazon del Leon I. At the same time, I’m going to be starting some new projects. And there’s a very active summer season coming up, and some leisure and breathing space to enjoy it.

Battlemoor II & Outlands 25th Year: and time shifts

Where do you start?

There’s an old Leslie Fish song called “Valhalla.” It’s perhaps over-sentimental and melodramatic, but it captures the deep subjective experience of the SCA – of Living the Dream. It talks about how a weekend camping event can put you thisclose to a transformative headspace, but a longer, larger war can really take you there.

I went back to work on Tuesday morning, to a job where my co-workers and patrons know what I do on weekends and how much I’ve been looking forward to this particular event, and, meaning well, they all ask how it was, and I don’t even have the words.

I’m still re-learning how to camp, and learning for the first time really how to field cook. I had a very ambitious menu planned, and for the most part, I pulled it off – a little re-shuffling at times, a little streamlining at times, and a little creative disbursement of leftovers, but by far and large, the menu came off as advertised. I learned a great deal and have pages of notes of what to do better next time, but I’m not sure when “next time” will be; I’m buying into the meal plan at both Fall Crown (the last camping event of the year) and Known World Cooks and Bards (the first camping event of next year).

I sat and watched an entire tournament from start to finish, and stood on the edges of a woods battle, watching the fighters move in and out of the trees in clusters and then boil out all at once to fight furiously for the flag.

I spent a lot of time just talking to friends, an endless succession of small conversations, catching a breath in the shade or sharing a drink or a meal or walking.

I learned to work gate.

My cell phone’s battery died before noon on Friday and I spent the rest of the event on pre-clockwork time, waking with the sun and resting in the heat of the day. At night, I partied until I could barely stand and danced for hours and then slept under the stars.

I stood in a circle with some of my dearest friends and some of my newest friends and swore my oath of honor to my Laurel, ending one long and winding journey and beginning another.

It was one of those nearly perfect events. Even the heat and dust and fatigue just melted into the background, becoming part of the embodied experience of doing a different thing, of departing the clean conveniences of modern life altogether, heightening the pure emotional flavor of the thing. It was just what I needed; it was everything I needed.

Outlands Kingdom A&S 2011: Full Circle

After an incredibly hectic month and more, I’m finally getting caught up on some overdue posting. I’m only just now writing about Kingdom A&S in the Barony of Fontaine dans Sable on April 9th.

It’s hard to articulate just how significant this event was to me. I never competed in A&S in Meridies; I was the perpetual newbie, never feeling that my work was up to competetive standards, not sure how to go about getting from here to there, too shy to ask for help, ever more wound up over it and just unable to jump over my own shadow. I’ve joked that it became a 40-Year-Old Virgin kind of thing. So when I started thinking about coming back, I promised myself an unencumbered new beginning in this. Among other things.

And so I came back. And my first event back, my first event in this kingdom, was Kingdom A&S 2010 in Caer Galen. It was an incredible event – a high-intensity madhouse in too small a venue, incredible entries, glorious clothes, intense conversation, everbody constantly elbow-to-elbow. I was dazzled and astonished and inspired, and for the first time in my SCA life, I thought, I can do this. I’m in the same league with this.

The year flew by; I attended Battlemoor I and helped a bunch of newbies find their way; I went back to Trimaris to assist at Fall Coronation/25th Year; I helped found a shire, and that took almost all of my time and energy for several months; and during all of that, I was starting from scratch myself, building up garb and gear for myself and my family from nothing. I came up for air in mid-January and realized that Kingdom A&S was 11 weeks away, and I dove headfirst into my project, a handwoven, natural-dyed, tablet-woven belt. (I always seem to be careening from one thing to another, just-in-time style…) I secured a sponsor, got my research written up, worked through the project, and made several friends along the way, and, finally, I met with one slight aquaintance and five total strangers to roadtrip to a barony on the other end of the kingdom. Because this is the SCA, several of these people had become dear friends by the time we made it back to Walsenburg, a few hours short of two days later..

This event was slower, sprawlier, more comfortable than last year in Boulder. I got on site quite early (because I stayed with the trollcrat) and set up my display and settled in and started getting visitors immediately. I got a LOT of visitors. I talked about my research and my persona and my vision of Baltic studies and my passion for underrepresented cultures in the SCA endlessly, it seemed; it all blurred together. I broke away now and then, to do the circuit of other entries, to work the competition/donation luncheon (reprising the Feast of Fools cumin broth and earning a respectable chunk of money for the kingdom travel fund) and a couple of times just to clear my head. Finally the call to break down went out and I changed out of my old, now-ragged, first-attempt belt and into the lovely new competition belt I’d just pulled off of my table.

I was wearing it for court, when they announced I’d taken the Costume Accessories category and placed second in the Textile Arts division, and a little while later, when I was called up to receive my Award of Arms.

There are some truly awful pictures on Facebook. My hair (which had just been cut in layers; it’s cute as hell in a professional style, but fell out of braids terribly) is in disarray, I’m crying and my face is red and splotchy, and the pattern of the cloak I’m playing is terrifically busy. I treasure those pictures. I never did get any pictures of my own; I did not know that my camera charger had shorted out, so I pulled a battery off the charger and loaded it back into the camera still depleted, and didn’t know it until I got to the event.

I have to make this clear: I loved Meridies. I still do. I was very happy there; and those things about it that were dissatisfying, I entirely brought upon myself with my timidness and my anxiousness – and, to be fair, life circumstances that extremely limited my ability to be involved. There’s absolutely no one in Glaedenfeld or Meridies in general who ever gave me anything but the warmest welcome, and I have many dear friends there still, and will always think of it as my first home.

But I played there for years, and never left the fringes, and sometimes I felt like I never would. The long, unwanted break from the SCA gave me a lot of time to think about what I wanted, and the fresh start in a new kingdom gave me the chance to go after it. The Outlands, this year here, has been a revelation and a transformation. I feel that I have finally, truly, begun.

(View online version of paper here.)

Feast of Fools 2011: The Edge of the Ocean

Yesterday was my first cooking gig in the Outlands! I cooked the first course of the Barony of Dragonsspine’s Feast of Fools event, a themed feast conceived and executed by the very talented Lady Apollonia de Avena. There was a lot of secrecy around this feast, which is why I didn’t post my recipes in advance, but now it’s done and I can talk about it!

It was a really unusual format in two ways:

First, it was an all-day feast, not a dayboard but a real served feast, with the courses going out at 11am, 12:30, 2pm, and 4pm, with fighting, performing arts, games and other activities between and during each course.

And second, it was all subtleties. The entire feast. Every course was served as a full-on subtlety. The feast was a visual, sensual prop to a quest tale, the narrative of which threaded through the entire event. It was an ambitious, outrageous, wonderful concept.

I had the first course, and I had complete creative control within the theme: the beginning of our Valiant Hero’s quest with a voyage over the ocean and landing on a distant shore. Apollonia asked for three soups, of which one should be seafood and another vegetarian, and for breads shaped to reflect the ocean theme and a soft cheese crab spread for the breads. Beyond that, I was on free to play.

For the soups, I chose two period and one reconstructed recipe, originals and redactions below.  I made a basic soft cheese with fresh herbs and faux crab; and a dozen sculpted fish loaves and about a gazillion accompanying scallop-shaped dinner rolls, using the Double Master recipe from Artisan Bread in Fifteen Minutes A Day. (“Impress your friends by memorizing this simple recipe and pulling it out of thin air! 6 (cups of warm water) – 3 (Tbsp. yeast) – 3 (Tbsp. salt) – 13 (cups flour).”)  I was just absolutely delighted with how the breads came out, and once I got the hang of it, it was not significantly more labor-intensive than making regular loaves. Bread sculpting is a skill I plan to develop and deploy at every opportunity in the future.

Cumin Broth (15c. English spiced meat broth), from Liber Cure Cocorum)

If you will make a cumin broth,
Veal and mutton and pork you hew
In small gobbets; put them in [a] pot
With minced onions, quite well I know,
And powder of Pepper you cast thereto;
Color it with saffron ere you do more,
And strain a mixture of brown crust also
To thicken this broth that is so meek.

For 1/2 gallon:
5 lbs. mixed bones and bony meat of several different kinds
(leftover bones from crown roasts or seven-bone roasts work well, as do soup bones, bone-in porkchops, etc. Use at least two, preferable three or more meats. I used beef, lamb, and pork in the recipe testing.)
1 large onion
3 Tbsp coarse black pepper
1 Tbsp sea salt
1 Tbsp cumin
1 tsp azafran/Mexican saffron/safflower

In a crock pot 12-18 hours or a large stock pot 6-8 hours, cook down bones, adding more water as needed to keep them just covered.

Strain liquid off and return 1/2 inch to the bottom of the stock pot. Recover any chunks of meat from the bones and chop very fine; add to pot along with onion chopped very fine and spices. Simmer at very high heat until all of the liquid is taken up. Return remaining broth to pot and cook down to desired consistency and volume. Turn off and cover to hold temp until serving.

Patine Zomore (4-5c. fish stew, from Apicius)

The zomore fish dish is made as follows [2] take raw ganonas [3] and other [fish] whichever you like, place them in a sauce pan, adding oil, broth, reduced wine, a bunch [4] of leeks and [green] coriander; while this cooks, crush pepper, lovage and a bunch of origany which crush by itself and dilute with the juice [5] of the fish. Now dissolve [break and beat egg yolks for a liaison] prepare and taste the dish, binding [the sauce with the yolks] sprinkle with pepper and serve.

2 Tbsp olive oil
1 leek, ends trimmed (use whites and softer greens)
1 bundle cilantro
1 Tbsp oregano
1 tsp. summer savory
1 tsp. fennel seed
1 pinch saffron
1 c. white wine
1 28-oz. can baby clams
1 8-oz. can lump crab
1 can octopus
1 can faux abalone
1 Tbsp. Thai fish sauce
1 Tbsp. sea salt
2 eggs yolks

Get olive oil very hot in the bottom of a stock pot and saute all vegetables and all spices except saffron together until the leeks are soft and have taken up the oil. Deglaze the pan with wine, then slowly add water to make 1/2 gallon of volume. Add all the seafood and bring to a simmer, holding for 20-30 minutes to reduce.

In a medium bowl, beat egg yolks well. Add hot stock very slowly, a spoonfull at a time, beating vigorously, until yolk is well diluted; then add mixture back into the stew and stir well, Continue stirring for 5-10 minutes, until broth thickens. Bring to a full rolling boil, crush saffron and add, then add fish sauce and salt to taste. Remove from heat and cover to hold at temperature until serving.

Duszony Por z Pasternak i Gier (reconstructed, from Food and Drink in Medieval Poland)

4 pounds leek greens (use the leafy part that is normally discarded)
3 pounds small parsnips, trimmed, pared, and sliced on a slant to resemble thick potato chips
2 cups sliced leek, white part only
2 cups white cabbage, shredded as for sauerkraut
1 cup coarsely chopped onion
4 cloves Rocambole garlic, sliced in half lengthwise [Ed. Note: see glossary]
6 tablespoons honey
1/8 teaspoon ground saffron
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ tsp ground cumin
1 tablespoon salt
2 tablespoons white vinegar
1 cup coarsely chopped alexanders (leaves and small stems only)

Boil the leek greens in 1 gallon of water until soft and until the stock is reduced by one-fourth (about 1 hour). Strain and reserve the liquid, discarding the leek greens. Put the stock in a stewing pot with the parsnips, sliced leeks, cabbage, onion and garlic. Cover and stew 45 minutes, or until the parsnips are tender, then add the honey, saffron, cinnamon, salt, and vinegar. Stew 15 minutes, then add the alexanders. Let the alexanders cook for about 5 minutes, then serve immediately over pieces of stale manchet bread or cheese dumplings.

For 1/2 gallon:

2 large leek,s sliced and greens separated from whites
2 lb. parsnips, trimmed and diced
1/2 large head of white cabbage, shredded very fine
1 Tbsp. sea salt
1 large onion, diced very fine.
1 bundle kale, chopped
1 Tbsp. chopped garlic
1/8 teaspoon ground saffron
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ tsp ground cumin
2 teaspoons white vinegar
1 Tbsp. honey

In a large stock pot, add leek greens and salt to about 1/2 gallon boiling water and boil vigorously for 15 minutes. Remove leek greens and add in parsnips, cabbage, onion, and garlic. Reduce to a simmer and leave for 45 minutes.

Trimaris Fall Coronation 2010/25th Year Celebration: A Family Reunion

Back to Trimaris and An Crosaire for my final event before officially “moving” to the Outlands – wonderful to be among my friends for this particular event, given the theme.

I was involved almost entirely with the Sunday high-authenticity Indian dinner covered in detail here. Activities included:

Sous-chef to Sunday Feast head cook Madhavi of Jaisalmer, floating as needed, including supervision of prepwork crews.

Plating of High Table and assisting with general plating.

Photography of hall and kitchen activity before and during feast.

Assisting the head cooks of other meals as my time could be spared from Madhavi’s needs.

Subtlety: a peacock carved of melon and embellished with the native fruits of India.