We had a fun feast despite the weather! There was plenty of food. Attendance was somewhere in the 20’s, a lot of people bailing at the last minute because of the weather.

Hall fee was $100, plus $100 cleaning deposit.

Final food costs, total, counting the test dishes made throughout the year, but not counting the cooking that was parceled out to house members, was $735.80.

Of that, approximately $400 went directly into the feast that we planned for 50, so there were leftovers that were put by in the first week after the feast and got served throughout the next several months, some of which went to the All Fool’s Feast in Corvaria.

There was plenty of help getting things cleaned up and the hall re-set. We did not get our full deposit back (only $75 of the $100) because supposedly we hadn’t cleaned the stove. Nope, we cleaned it up to where it was when we got there and did the towels, which apparently didn’t have to be done.

Final Feast Menu – (“NS” means “not served”, “NM” means, “not made”)

Day – On the table full time – Breads/butters/jams – Varieties rotate through as baskets/containers empty. (breads: wheat, oat, barley, pea flour, rye/caraway) (butters: regular, garlic, herb & onion) (jams: salal, blackberry, huckleberry)

  • Noon – Garlic cheese, salted tvarog, caraway tvarog and pickled (NS) and potted cheese (NS).
  • 1pm – Hot crab and bread
  • 2pm –Fried cheese, & fried sauerkraut with black bread and pickled mushrooms
  • 3pm – Pickled Herring with caraway rye and hard-boiled and pickled eggs.
  • 4pm – Pickled sausage and variety pickles

4:30pm Hall re-set

5pm – 1st course

  • Borscht for the horde (both “hard” and “soft”(NM))
  • Bread/Cheese Soup – Chlebova Polevka
  • Onion/Cabbage/Leek Pottage
  • Lentil pottage
  • Breads
  • Sauces offered for dipping – Spenat, Lentil, Mushroom, Mushroom Catsup, Dill (NM), beef/Wine (from roast)

5:30pm – Main course – Beef cooked in wine with onions/mushrooms, Caraway barley with onions (NM), Beet, Leek and Onion salad

5:45pm – Main course – Chicken Stew (NS) as a subtlety with the pheasant pelt and “made” head
Baked fowl (Game Hen) (NM)

6pm – Main course – Caraway pork roast with brined apples (NS), Bread Dumplings with gravy/sauces

6:15pm- Main course – Baked salmon with honey carrots (NM), saffron rice (NM) Sweet/Sour cabbage

6:30 – Main course – Holoubky w/egg dumplings (NM) in beef broth

Sweets, afters – 6:45pm

  • Babovka
  • Kolacky
  • Brandied cherries
  • Shrewsbury cakes
  • Rohlicki (NM)
  • Zabi Hyby NM)

Drinkables

  • Czeminga – Hydromel (NM)
  • Mint water
  • hot mint tea
  • Hot chai (NM)
  • Cherry Tea (NS)
  • Hot coffee

Isabeau’s take on the feast

The feast was amazing in spite of the bi-polar weather.
Several visitors attended and were truly awed at the array of delightful dishes.
Many members of the household were in attendance and were thrilled with the menu choices. Anja outdid herself.
Laughter and merriment abounded.

Cookery – Sunday – (This is all in Anja’s voice from here on….) 

I was up early, running lists through my head. Loren and I got out to the hall and found snow on the ground! It was hailing on us all day, alternately with snow, and then with sleet in the evening. Isabeau hit snow in philomath.

It was a good thing that I built in a lot of wiggle room in the schedule, ‘coz it was 11am before everything got to the hall and the pickle fridge was yet to get unloaded.

While I was waiting for the 2nd load of stuff I started to get the beverages set up, but I was really wondering where Gudrun and Casey were, since they had the next set of things to do. I sat with my sewing, while waiting and then got the “solar” set up with the balls project.

 I got out into the kitchen, starting the cooking, and Gudrun and Casey started doing food labels and then tags. After that they put up the menu and did tableclothes and such.

I went back to the shop to get the next load, since the fridge needed to be gutted, and then came back, watching hail bouncing off the car windows. We got a lot of giggles out of the hail coming down out of a clear blue sky.

By 10am the rest of the crew was starting to arrive, which meant getting the hall into shape. By 12:30 guests were coming in to be greeted with bread, pickles and cheese already on the table.

The feasting really started a bit after 1pm. I was making substitutes as we went because of things that hadn’t arrived, yet. Eventually the contents of the pickle fridge got to the hall.

Smazeny syr a nakládané zelí – Fried cheese and fried pickled cabbage

Day foods included not only breads, cheeses and pickles, but some hot dishes. The fried cheese and cabbage was a hit. The hot crab wasn’t quite as popular as the last time I made it. But people got a kick out of the really different dishes that we had.

Several people helped out with some of the “warm body” jobs in the kitchen, setting up dumpling dough, defrosting soups and the like while I got some of the concocting of sauces and such done.

Loren got music going, the recording of the music from the time of Charles IV, and a couple by the Baltimore Consort. I took a couple of cookery breaks during the day, taking time to chat with people, and during one of those breaks I did a couple of stories. One was the “Old Soldier” and the other “Axe Soup”, one of the Hloupy Honza series. I also picked up my sewing during another of those.

There was a wide variety of people there: House members, both from the local area and the ones from inland who brought coworkers, one of whom had played with the SCA in Atlantia. There were local people, some from my classes at the shop and some who had heard me blathering about the feast and asked to come. There were also SCA folks from the Valley, who play with the House every so often. Loren’s and my landlady, who used to do Ren Fairs in SoCal also came and we seated her at the head table with us.

Some of the day foods got raves and a lot got compliments. The garlic butter and the herb and onion butter got mowwed on (the latter by Jay and Josh) and the pickles were “it” as far as one lady was concerned. The fried cheese and sauerkraut was a definite hit. The breads went away pretty fast, too.

Then I got back into the kitchen for setting up the feast proper. The hall got re-set and the food cart loaded with the crocks. We had Hlebova Polevka (bread soup), Borscht, čočky (lentil soup) and an oat and greens pottage. The soups ran late, lack of communication on getting started, there.

…and then the rush was on. We only did 4 of the 5 main dishes, but nobody cared, and by the 4th dish everyone was stuffed. 🙂 Most of the foods worked very well, although we missed a couple of things in the rush to get everyone fed. I undercooked one set of dumplings, but the rest were fine. …and we decided at the last minute to not do the rice and barley, which was a good call.

The sweets went over well. Gudrun and Casey’s Shrewsbury Cakes were good and the babovky and kolacky were tasty. …..and then people talked and ate and picked at leftovers, starting to head out around 8pm.

Looks like we had 23 total, although a couple left before the feast  ‘coz of work, and several came late!

Gudrun/Casey took off early so they could get home before weather turned vile, but they had been working hard all day. Jay and his buddy Josh did a lot of the hall sort and sweep up and left-over eating. Isabeau, Toni, Lezlie and Louisa did all the kitchen cleanup!

They kept telling me to sit down and stay off my feet. I was limping pretty badly by then, but I had to get the stuff from the fridge and freezer and make sure things got sorted as best we could. Loren ran back and forth with carloads of equipment and food and such.

One by one folks headed out. Louisa, unfortunately, hit some black ice about a mile from where she was planning to stay 360’ed into the guardrail and ended up spending the night in the Walmart parking lot! She and her pup are both fine, but the van has cosmetic damage and something wonky in the electricals.

Isabeau went home with Toni to stay overnight before heading back to Albany, and Lezlie took Jay and Josh home after we had loaded up the last of the equipment and closed up the hall. Nobody had any other road problems.

I was really cold. We had turned off the heaters in the hall after folks left and I just chilled right through. I didn’t really feel like I had thawed out until hours after I crawled into bed.

So this week we’re putting away and sorting out, mostly. There’s a lot of the equipment that’s already done, but several totes yet to go.

Feast Day – Hall Pix

Feast Day – Food Pix

Day foods

Feast Day – Feast food Pix – Only soups at the moment, but there are supposed to be some other ones out there.

Thanks to:

  • Jay for providing the funds for the last store run.
  • Amy for making the povidla (plum filling)
  • Gudrun and Casey for the Shrewsbury cakes.
  • Jay, Josh, Gudrun and Casey for the hall and Gold Key set-up.
  • Jay and Josh for the hall clean-up.
  • Leslie, Louisa, Toni and Isabeau for the kitchen clean-up, and for making Anja sit down and stop helping. ….plus all the people who did dishes at various times.
  • All the various House Members who ran in and out helping with the cooking and serving.
  • …and especially Loren, who, despite all the provocation, didn’t kill Anja for it, did most of the feast shopping, trucked things back and forth to pickle fridge and freezers, and generally kept things going.

moving writing pen motifIn ministerio autem Somnium! Anja, graeca doctrina servus to House Capuchin
Page Created 7/30/17 & published 8/2/17 (C)M. Bartlett
Last updated 10/12/18