We heard from some of the House members that can’t get to many of the meetings this week. Jay and Sash couldn’t make it down to the potluck because of travel issues and other obligations. Gudrun sent a friend to visit the shop who was here for a bit during project day. A couple of the Herb Bunch folks (who are all non-SCA) have been helping Anja with keeping her herb plants from dying while everything gets shifted from pillar to post. We had a tasty, ill-attended, potluck.
There was a local response to the “situation” in Trimaris. Master Davius has handed his regalia to the (Crown?) Prince and Princess to only be worn again once the current King has stepped down.
Viscount Baron Durin Oldenmoor Tjorkillskin (Chris Howerton), made a statement.
“Sometimes you have to stand against the juggernaut of hatred and ignorance. Master Davius, we have never met. But I’ll stand next to you on the field of honor each and every day until the tide of hatred recedes or I breathe my last. #IStandWithDavius”
Honor to Viscount Durin!
Meetings are at the normal times 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
- Next Potluck – 9/16, 10/21
- Winter Feast Date is 2/17/19
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/
From last weekend’s Chamionships – photos and write-up by Diana de Winterton – “Greetings, all! Cheers to Ayla Roth, Master Nikolai Grendal Gornych at Red Troll Forge (Nicholas Marcelja) and Tjorkill Kanne for their artistry in creating new regalia for the Summits Captain of Eagles and Summits Hunter! Ayla created 2 matching hoods for the Hunter and Captain of Eagles out of blue silk and linen with silk embroidery, and added chalices from the old Eagles hood directly over the Champion’s heart on the underside of each hood. The stunning Hunter’s axe was forged by Master Grendal and etched by Duke Tjorkil, who also did the etching on the handle and made the leather scabbard.”
Early Week – Anja is still whomping her way through the grommets in the Hedeby bag. On Monday a box arrived. She’s participating in an SCA gift exchange and these are what she received.
Cookery – The early part of the week was spent on making juice of a tote of crabapples that we were gifted with. The juice went into the freezer for finish processing later.
On Thursday Anja set up a split pea pottage with ham and bacon, rice and barley, carrots and onions, caraway and salt. On Friday she started a beef stew that got finished on Saturday. An asparagus pickle got set up, too. (No process pix on the others…)
One dish that we’re contemplating for the Winter Feast is from Le Viandier de Tallivent.
13. Almond cumin dish – Cook your chicken well in water, quarter it, and brown it in lard. Take almonds, crush, steep in your broth, and boil with your meat. Add ginger and cumin steeped in wine and verjuice. This dish always thickens itself.
Anja’s interpretation of Cumin Almond Chicken from Le Viandier
Ingredients
- 4 1/4 inch slices of fresh ginger, scraped of the skin.
- 4 chicken breasts, fresh or thawed
- 1/2 cup of almond meal
- Salt
- Ground cumin
- 1/2 cup red wine (used merlot)
- Water
- A Sprinkle of sliced almonds and cumin seed
Method
- In a large crockpot put your 4 ginger slices down and set the chicken pieces on top.
- Sprinkle almond meal on top of the chicken, reserve any left over when you have a thin layer.
- Add just a touch of salt, lightly sprinkled, then the cumin.
- Pour the wine overall, and then just enough water to have the chicken begin to “swim”.
- Cook on low for 8 hours, flipping the chicken pieces once, and adding more water if not enough juice comes out of the chicken and they start to dry.
- Pull the chicken out and set aside to cool until you can handle it.
- Taste the juice. If it needs more salt or cumin or wine add a bit, then stir in any leftover almond meal and leave on the heat.
- Cut up the chicken. I aim for the largest pieces to be 1/2×1/2×2 inches, but it doesn’t have to be diced.
- Add it back to the pot and turn down to “keep warm” or if you don’t have that setting on your pot, turn it off and wrap in a heavy towel.
- You can serve 15 minutes after the heat is turned down, up to 2 hours later if it’s on “keep warm”. Wrapped in a towel up to an hour. Anything longer than that, refrigerate and re-heat.
- Garnish with sliced almond and a bit of cumin seed.
Sewing – One grommet left by the end of Thursday evening…..
Sewing Time – Saturday – Nobody was in. …but the Hedeby Bag finally got finished on Sunday. It’s *really* hard to get pictures of black, too.
Herb Bunch – We finally got a pic of the roses/potatoes as they are now…. I’ve never heard that the potatoes sprout, but they have!
The last pieces of Anja’s garden got moved on Tuesday and then shifted to a better spot on Thursday. (…around behind the back steps of the shop building…) She’s almost done with starts and plant tending after Saturday’s Workshop. There are only a few left to be done, plus one bowl of succulents and a bunch of veg ends for one of the buckets.
Project Day – Was just Loren and Anja. Loren worked on more sanding. Anja finished the last grommet on the hedeby bag and started sewing the frame, but most of what was happening during the whole day was putting the potluck together.
After we ate Anja got the bucket of veg ends to regrow set up, so that one is done. The rest of the succulents need to callus, or they’re already in pots.
Potluck – We had everything on the table and pictures taken by 5pm and no one else had showed, so we started eating, just the two of us. We ended up stuffed with very tasty food and we’ve plenty of leftovers for the week.
Potluck Menu – by Anja and Loren
Beverage – Mead – Sierra Nectar Wildflower Mead from Mountain Meadows Mead
First course
- Bean pickles
- Asparagus pickle
- Beet Pickle
- Black Olives
- Green Olives
- Machengo cheese (Baby Machengo)
2nd Course
- Pease pottage with ham
- Beef stew
- Almond Cumin Chicken
- Bread – White wheat loaves
- Garlic Butter
3rd Course
- Maple squares and more of the cheese
More on the cheese – “Manchego cheese or queso manchego is a hard cheese made out of unpasteurized sheep’s milk, exclusively produced in the La Mancha region in central Spain. The breed of sheep is Manchega, also exclusive to the region.” For more on this delicious cheese that dates to the bronze age, please see this website: https://tastessence.com/history-facts-about-manchego-cheese
Miscellaneous pix
Music
Links
- The Aberdeen Bestiary – https://www.themorgan.org/collection/worksop-bestiary
- Article about the Pennsic A&S War Point – https://eastkingdomgazette.org/2018/08/14/report-on-the-pennsic-arts-sciences-war-point/
- The Table of Contents of a series of articles about race and racism in the middle ages – https://www.publicmedievalist.com/race-racism-middle-ages-toc/
Funnies
Anja, Loren, Aleksandr (V), Jay (V)
Largesse Item Count – (includes gifts, prizes, auction items, etc.)
- ASXLVII = 24
- ASXLVIII = 88
- ASXLIX = 794
- ASL = 2138
- ASLI = 731
- ASLII = 304
- ASLIII – 7 plus 25 pouches for block-printing, 15 (plus 25 unfinished) pincushion, 2 sewing kits (except for bone needles), varnished stuff (124) 7 snap pouch, one double drawstring pouch, 4 brocade pouch
Total as a Household = 3671 handed off
In ministerio autem Somnium! Anja, graeca doctrina servus to House Capuchin
Page Created 8/12/18 & published ??/??/18 (C)M. Bartlett
Last updated 8/20/18
This week has almost been too busy to even write! It was certainly too busy to get photos. Progress is glacial when real life intervenes. <sigh>
describes the situation and responses, but is quite clear about the author’s take. 
This coming Sunday is our next potluck! Whatcha bringin’? So far we know there will be a couple of cheeses, a lentil pottage, some pickles and a meat dish, maybe a beef stew, or maybe Papyns and some stuffed mushrooms. …and maple candy, even if it’s not period!
So I’m watching this documentary on the history of Britain, and they mention something I have to have heard about a million times (as, I’m sure, have you), but which hadn’t really sunk in till now: The Plantagenet Dynasty, which lasted for over 400 years – 331 of which were spent on the throne – got its name from the fact that Geoffrey V of Anjou liked to wear a sprig of straw in his hat.
“Why are y’all called Plantagenets?”
”
Projects are coming along slowly. Everyone is so very busy, working, and Anja and Loren are up to their eyeballs in getting ready to move. No, they don’t know where, yet, although almost all of the garden has been shifted to a friend’s to keep it safe.
Cookery – There are a couple of interesting recipes with pictures down in the Miscellaneous pictures section. Harvesting starting of huckleberries!
Sewing – …was just Anja’s usual embroidery stuff, although she worked with a couple of the shop customers on the when and where and how of blackwork.
Tourist season is hitting the House pretty hard. We’re all trying to keep going on things, but when your day is long and your sleep short, something’s gotta give.
that we also used on Sunday, but to make the period sauce on Sunday when Anja had a few more brain cells to rub together. Anja also got an answer to the weirdness with the “flower” (flour) in the following recipe from Hannah Wolley (1670)
So Tuesday evening, the pork roast was set out to thaw, spiced with caraway and mustard, and a couple of bags of frozen carrots were pulled out to make another dish for the potlucks. We set up a purchased cherry sauce for Wednesday, planning to make the “claret” one on Sunday.
Gogor and Anja spent awhile online on Saturday talking recipes. Anja was working from The Good Hus-wif’s Jewell and found this recipe:
Tymberhavene A&S Potluck – Anja wanted to get the embroidered pouches to their recipients since she couldn’t do that for Investiture. She and Loren talking about mailing them, but decided instead to go to this week’s A&S & Potluck in Tymberhavene.
Lots of friends were at War this week. There were very few pictures and updates coming out because there’s little Wifi on the site. So maybe there will be some in next week’s report. The holiday really disrupted all the usual things this week, but some small progress got made. We heard from Amor and about his various knapping projects on Sunday. There’s a gallery.
We got to taste the strawberry pickles on Tuesday. The response from about 1/2 was “too potent”. The rest were, “Weird, but good!” Salty is *not* something you associate with strawberries for certain…. Consensus seems to be that the pickles are probably not a period process, but that the sugar layering might be, but right at the tail end of period. Still hoping to find out about fruits preserved in honey. There are some conserve recipes, and all kinds for cooking them fresh and methods for drying, else all the recipes (so far) are post-1600.
Our week was productive and planning is proceeding for Winter Feast. We got a shock on Sunday though and it messed with how much got done overall. There’s sewing, embroidery, cookery and woodworking below and more!
We lost a Friend of the House this week. Jeanne was in a car crash on 101 Saturday evening and died instantly.
This photo is Jeanne with Loren at our Winter Feast this past February.
So Anja went hunting for period recipes and found this from Treasurie of Comodious Conceits 1573, by John Partridge (But this sounds like strawberry jam…..)
Early Week – We spent the early week packing up and putting away stuff from the displays and sorting out whose was which. 🙂
Herb Bunch – Was just more of what we’ve been doing: rose sugar, harvesting herbs, drying herbs. Just a-workin’ in the garden….
House Capuchin 3 