House Capuchin Shield2Some weeks are more productive than others. This week…. Some of the stuff that’s going on doesn’t create pictures, like the feast cookbook, but it’s going to be a big chunk of what we need for the feast.

Other projects are on-going, like the weekly Herbs workshop.

Cookery for the feast is going apace. This week mustard and other sauces, more cookies and starting the breads!

There are 3 cool article/display/picture things at the beginning of the report.

Little bindles all lined up

Meetings on time this week.

  • Herb Bunch – At Ancient Light, Saturdays, 11am-1pm
  • Sewing Time – At Ancient Light, Saturdays, 3-5pm
  • Project Day – At Ancient Light, Sundays, Noon to 6pm
  • Cheese and Wine happens irregularly, usually announced with little notice on our Facebook group.
  • Next Potluck – 3/15, 4/19, 5/17
  • Winter Feast Date is 2/23/20, Theme German Renaissance

Here is the direct Portfolio link which has all the past Project Day reports and various projects, original here:  https://housecapuchin.wordpress.com/portfolio/  and new one here:  https://housecapuchin2.wordpress.com/portfolio/ and number three is here: https://housecapuchin3.wordpress.com/portfolio/

SCA seasons – KELLY MELISSA PRIM·SUNDAY, JANUARY 19, 2020·on Facebook(used with permission)
I am fighting burnout. Fighting it hard. In the SCA, especially once you start hanging out around people who are not newbies you will start to hear the term burnout. This game is not a spectator sport, it is participation based and with anything that awards great participation, there is the potential for burnout. The problem with the term burnout is that it seems like an endpoint, and that just isn’t a good enough perspective for me. I finally determined that burnout a less positive term than season.
Seasons, unlike burnout, are not an endpoint but a point on a cycle. Whatever season you are in, another season is yet to come and what is annoying or all consuming on one day, will pass and change. In the SCA I think people probably go through seasons of play. In the beginning as a newcomer, we are energetic full of wondering and questions about this life we found out about in the SCA. There is a great push to find out things, learn things, discover! Spring is my favorite season but it can be a fairly short period of time in the SCA. Many people move quickly on to summer. Summer is when the blossoming talents and search for knowledge come to fruition with amazing feats of martial skill and creations from artisans. Everyone seems to like summer. It feels relaxed, you can wallow in plenty and feel secure in the warmth of understanding. The SCA has become a comfortable and welcoming place.
Then comes fall. In nature fall is the time for temperate ecosystems to rest from the bounty of summer. In the SCA this is when the long nights, the bruises, the travel, the real life starts interrupting. When another round of packing the car just wears you down, or the printer failing to print your 12 page documentation just makes you want to sob and quit. When that officer position just becomes too much and you look forward to a rest. This is a Scadian fall. When you pull back, shed a few projects, put a few things on the shelf, when you look for ways to conserve energy. If fall does not work, winter is coming. Brace yourself.
Scadian winter is when you are not fighting burnout- you are burnt out. Like a tree in the snow with naked branches you have entered dormancy. You are at rest. Trees must have this period of near total inactivity because otherwise they won’t be able to enter the next season. So now when I see someone entering burnout, I don’t feel bad for them. They need a winter, if they are ever to have a spring again with the energy, and vivaciousness that is springtime. I am in winter right now. I need a real and true rest. A time when I have totally shed all my responsibilities like leaves off a tree. While it looks like inactivity, it is merely the time before the spring. And my favorite season is spring.

56 female Knights(at last count)

Tir Righ A&S 2019: Uterine Inversion (I misunderstood. I thought this was a display from Urselmas! Project One: A treatment for Uterine Inversion After Childbirth based on the Trotula Texts. Used with permission from  Lucy Holgrove’s Receipt Book (Facebook page)

first batch baked

Feast Progress – Invites all went out on Thursday. If you have more individual ones, or a branch that you’d like to send one too, let me know! We started hearing back yes or no’s almost right away. Cookbook work. Bieroks are 1/2 done.

Early Week –

…was all cleaning up from the potluck, watering plant starts, and rearranging them. Care packages went out on Tuesday and Thursday. We were eating up left-overs all week.

Cookery – On Wednesday Anja set up tiny Rumtopf jars as thank yous for the feast. She ran out of rum before she was done, so they got an extra splash after they were all set up and a bit of sugar, as well.

On Friday, the chicken left-overs were turned into chicken salad with some celery, onion, water chestnuts and olives added to the mix.

On Saturday we started with finding the ingredients for Bieroks that we knew were in the freezer. Loren ran back and forth with bags of stuff for Anja to ID. We ended up with a mushroom onion set and a pork/beef/barley/onion set so we got those thawed and a dough made and started in. We also decided to add some ground pork, so that had to be cooked, then the filling heated to make sure it was ok, then dough. When that was ready teh dough had to be rolled, cut and filled.

“Runza” the Czech name for these, means “little bindles” and that’s what they look like as they’re formed. When they’re rising they’re flipped onto the extra dough and baked.

The dough turned out a bit tough, but this was more like a pizza dough than a bread dough. We might try them with a standard dough, but that’s going to be hard to roll out… and since we were baking only 4 at a time, some of the batches were harder than others. With pouring butter over them while hot, they softened up, too.

The stash of bobs.

Sewing – Anja is still arguing with the pattern for the cuffbands. It’s really difficult. Scissor bobs happen when frustration hits the “fry” point.

There are a lot of small bits of embroidery fabrics left over. Some are “off-cuts” or “cabbage” from pieces with curved lines or that don’t fit a standard size. There’s quite a bit of Aida from a bolt of fabric that got spoiled and stained from a leak in the roof and has been cut up. This is what’s getting used up in the bobs.

Sundials, etc. – Cut the puppet pieces. Sanded and finished a couple of small boxes that may become sewing kits.

Herb Bunch – On Tuesday, Anja wrote this, “I spent quite awhile yesterday working on the planters out front. I got a lot of old, dead foliage pulled and a lot of weeds. I filled a tote that Loren took out to a compost pile that we have use of for stuff of that sort. I managed to dump the small pots that had no plants into some of the planters that needed a bit of new dirt, like my fennel and the sorrel. I also ended up pulling up a *lot* of crocosmia corms in the process. I need to thin those out!”

Cleaned up corms

“So I have a small bucket of corms that are free to the first person that wants them and there will be more. Crocosmia have long, green sword-shaped leaves and stems of bright orange or red flowers in the summer. They love our climate out here, so after the first year, when they do need some water, they’re a no-care filler plant that chokes out grass and other weeds.”

The corms and small plants that were pulled up, like ivy and a few others were set aside for the Herbs Workshop.

Seed stash

We’re trying to work out a time to go see Marian’s bamboo. We’re waiting to see whether our times and her convenience will match. …and it does. We heard on Saturday that 3/8 is going to work for all of us.

Saturday’s Herbs Workshop was really busy. We made starts of a bunch of succulents and plants that Anja had dug up on Monday (ivy in the fennel pot? How’d that one happen?) went out and harvested some more and planted those, got a greenhouse tray planted with chives and tarragon and cleaned up the crocosmia corms.

Late in the day Loren got the two trays of starts outside, and the seed tray into the window.

Project Day – Loren was starting a bread dough, prior to making the 2nd batch of bierok dough when Estella stopped by! We had a good chat, some about the feast and feast foods, some about other food…. time for lunch, obviously. 🙂 about music for the feast and some other things.

Loren had the yeast waked up by then, so he got the dough going. …and then had to run out to pick up something. When he got back he formed and baked.

We got the pieces for my puppet cut, partway. Late in the day a couple of the small boxes got sanded and finished.

Anja spent quite a bit of the time working on the feast cookbook.

2nd batch of bierok dough didn’t work right so it got turned into focaccia.

Recipes

Bierok (Runza) These are a traditional lunch or supper dish, eaten cold or hot, as you please.

Bierok filling

  • Sauerkraut
  • Ground beef/pork/lamb mix
  • Onion
  • Barley
  • Salt
  • Spices (pepper, horseradish, mustard, caraway or what suits you)
  1. Cook the meat with the onion, drain and cool.
  2. Cook the barley until soft and cool.
  3. Rinse a double handful of sauerkraut and drain thoroughly, patting dry on paper towels to get the liquid out.
  4. Mix the meat, barley, salt and spices in a small bowl.

Bierok dough

  • 1 tbsp sugar
  • 300 ml warm water (1 ¼ cups)
  • 1 package of active dry yeast (2 ¼ Tbsp)
  • 500 g all-purpose flour, plus extra for dusting (4 cups)
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tbsp olive oil, plus extra for greasing
  1. Make dough in breadmaker.
  2. Roll dough to 16 inches
  3. Cut in 4×4 squares with a pizza cutter or knife (should have 36 approximately)
  4. Put a scoop of sauerkraut in each, then a scoop of the meat mixture.
  5. Bring edges together and pinch shut.
  6. Grease baking sheet or use parchment.
  7. Place each on baking sheet, sealed side down.
  8. Let rise until they “puff”.
  9. Bake at 350 until they brown, but don’t burn. (To get the time for your oven, do just a couple at first and cut open to check for doneness.)

Miscellaneous pix

Music – https://ancientfm.com/

Links

For those looking to make comfortable clothes, to sell in, to shop in, or to craft in, viking is a great option.

There is a new group to help. There will be a monthly sew-a-long complete with pattern, sewing instruction, documentation, and of course lots of group help if you get stuck.

As many artists need a canvas, but aren’t so certain about construction, or are not interested in documenting garb but still desire accuracy, these sew alongs are going to be great!

Because this is helpful to better, more comfortable event crafting, selling and shopping, I am posting the group link. I do hope it is ok to do so.

Thank you.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/475385519799179/

Funnies 

Anja, Loren, James, Sasha, Isabeau, Louisa, Amy, Herb Bunch (3), Estella, Amor (v)

divider black grey greek key

Largesse Item Count – (includes gifts, prizes, auction items, etc.)

  • ASXLVII = 24
  • ASXLVIII = 88
  • ASXLIX = 794
  • ASL = 2138
  • ASLI = 731
  • ASLII = 304
  • ASLIII – 146
  • ASLIV – 185 plus 2 puppets, 3 hippocras mix, 20 powder fort packets, 5 tiny bobs (plus 3 embroidered), lucet cords, 25 pouches for block-printing, 1 medium pouch, 4 small pouches, 12 bookmarkers, 18 unfinished pincushions, 1 sewing kit (except for bone needle), varnished stuff (124)

Total as a Household = 4016 handed off

moving writing pen motifIn ministerio autem Somnium! Anja, graeca doctrina servus to House Capuchin
Page Created 1/22/20 & published ?/??/20 (C)M. Bartlett
Last updated 4/25/20