madbaker | Mists Bardic recap

We had a good time at the event Saturday.

Long day: We got there as the site opened at 10 AM – we had four boxes of serving gear from upstairs to deliver, along with the products of eleven batches of bread. We left around 10 PM as we wanted to take all the boxes back. Not really fair to the autocrat to make her keep them in her small apartment. Fortunately Dawn drove back, as I hit the wall before the event was over.

Good food: a fairly massive feast in the Roman style. I haven’t played around with those sources enough to know how authentic the dishes were, but nothing jumped out at me. Literally or figuratively. Since there were six courses of varying size, there was plenty of food. I didn’t have anything bad, and most of it was tasty and attractive. I’m not a fan of the way the head cook scheduled the courses, though: food came out at (what seemed to be) random intervals. The fact that the royalty was late (pushing back the start of the competition) undoubtedly didn’t help. Fundamentally, though, it's a philosophical difference. As I understand it, those in the "food comes out gradually" camp like it because people get to eat constantly. It’s also much easier on the kitchen. My view: all the dishes in a course should come out at essentially the same time. That way, if you don’t like something you can eat more of another; more certainty in timing means that you can go off and dance, chat, whatever, and not worry about missing a dish. Also some dishes go better with others. I prefer to eat barley with accompanying meat and sauce, for example, rather than by itself.

Fine performances: three ladies competed and several other folks performed for entertainment. I wasn’t blown away by any of the competitors, but they were all respectable. I’m sure that the lady who won will do a credible job.

And my bread came out well: I couldn’t use my baker’s mark on the loaves (the feast was Roman, and bakers’ marks didn’t come in until the 13^th century). So I played around with different slash patterns on the top. I was I was quite pleased with how the "high table" loaf came out, which was a slash in the shape of a four-pointed coronet. I don’t know if Their Highnesses saw it, though; they showed up quite late and the Cynaguan royalty may already have cut into it. Oh well. The Mists Highnesses handed out coins to everyone who helped with the feast. I’m always blown away by this. Seriously, an honest thank-you is enough. Getting a personal token of some sort just kicks it up a notch. I don't know Dimitri & Jimena, but now I will have some warm fuzzies for them.

Excellent chattage: good to see tsgeisel for the first time in a few years. Lots of good blahing with folks. In the "complete surprise" category, Cariadoc and Elizabeth gave me a bronze Saxon-style wolf head necklace. Apparently they were impressed with the merchant at Pennsic, and since it’s a wolf they thought of me. I consider them friends, but not "real close friends" so a surprise gift of this thoughtfulness was just astonishing.

Okay, that was significantly longer than I planned. Time to stop now.