Getting Ready for the Demo
Apr. 15th, 2013 01:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stitchwhichI have blistered one finger by doing too much hand-sewing intensely. We travelled yesterday from our area to the District of Colombia to attend a meeting (read: hang with our Horde Brothers) and while we travelled I sat in the backseat of the car and stitched away at some white linen that I am going to use as an apron-tie during my up-coming Viking demo next weekend. The linen is very nicely dense but that meant that I had to use a lot of pressure to work the needle out of the fabric. And man, are the roads awful in their dis-repair! Four and a half hours of sewing in the car followed by about 6 hours at the meeting. I had to stop and set it aside during the trip home. But by our return I had the apron-belt finished as well as 2/3 of the headwrap I will need. (Thanks, guys, for deciding that the Viking Camp will feature people from the early eleventh century so the only woman in camp, who by the way is your cook - might wanna think about keeping her happy, eh? - will have to give up her hangerroc and brooches, you know, the fun stuff to wear, and dress as a Good Christian Lady. Bor-rrr-RING!) Luckily for me, the day promises to be not-so-warm so I won't sweat to death with my head covered completely up by miles of linen.
Tonight while watching television with Da Boss for an hour, I pulled out my sewing and finished the head wrap. I thought that my finger felt a little more sore than it should and decided to stop for the rest of the evening. That was a good decision. A blister has now risen underneath what looks like a developing callus. No wonder it was sore. Oops. I should back down from any hand-sewing until it heals but there is still the apron itself which needs to be edged on all four sides. Thank goodness it's just a large rectangle. I guess I could hold off on finishing it until I got home from the demo and just wear it 'raw', but then I'd be afraid to wash the thing before I could complete the stitching. So that finger better heal quickly. I gots work to do!
I've been winnowing down my list of foods to prepare for the demo. I am to feed 14 Viking-era reenactors breakfast and lunch. They're on their own for dinner as most of them are hotelling it anyway at night. I won't be - I'll be sleeping in one of my tents. Our group leader promised sausages. I rolled my eyes at that one as he hadn't actually consulted me when he started making promises to our two guest groups - I don't even know if sausages were eaten by the Norse during that time! Yay, leader! (He also promised Scotch Eggs but I drew metaphoric blood from him on that one.) So far this is what I've got planned, keeping in mind that this is to be visible to the tourists:
Available during the day:
Dried cherries, plums, apricots (not many of those of course) and raisins
Walnuts & hazelnuts
hard-boiled eggs which are going to be SO COOL because I'm getting them from a guy who is raising heritage chickens and the eggs he has are white, tan, dark brown, light blue, darker blue, pinkish, and teal. No, really - teal!
Apples (Lady apples), cucumbers, and pears (Bosch? I'm not really sure which type to bring)
Breads, white cheeses, butter, lingonberry jam and honey
That should keep everyone going and show well to the tourists.
Breakfast, I think, will be mystron (barley cooked in beef broth) one day and oats cooked in water & blackberry juice with apples and honey the next. (I'm bringing canned balckberries since I won't have to keep them cold, and figured I might as well take advantage of the juice by putting it in with the sweet breakfast. I think some of the guys are going to balk about the mystron so I am planning on pre-cooking a lot of bacon and setting it out at the same time so the grumpy ones can snack on that while they get their courage up to eat a non-sweet morning dish. Or maybe I'll take pity on them and pack in a few raw eggs to be scrambled.
Lunch is going to be sausages (sigh) with stewed parsnips & carrots on Saturday followed by blackberries in cream. The next day will be meat pies (small ones, actually. I'm using empanada wrappers and filling them in advance. They should be easy for the cooks to fry in a bit of oil in the big pot. And we might try simply heating them on the frying pan since they are so small), celery stewed in chicken broth with onions, mushrooms, & young peas (or else bean soup - I haven't decided), griddle cakes made with walnut flour & fruit bits, followed by skyr mixed with berries or honey, as they'd like.
I think that should do it, both for combining protein & carbs, as well as being somewhat interesting to see by the tourists. I'm not doing any of the cooking over the fire, as it has been determined that I'm not safe without my glasses, so I have to make sure that the cooking will be easy to do by non-specialists. But I'm bringing a 'farby tent' and inside of that I'll have a coleman stove where I can do some of the cooking that my 'kitchen helpers' (everyone is tasked with 2 hours a day helping me) can't handle at the fire. Plus this time, for the first time, I can actually wash the dishes without having to wait for nightfall and the tourists to leave. That is going to be a huge relief! I'm bringing my normal camp kitchen's washing pans and can take care of all of that out of sight. Thank goodness.
Tonight while watching television with Da Boss for an hour, I pulled out my sewing and finished the head wrap. I thought that my finger felt a little more sore than it should and decided to stop for the rest of the evening. That was a good decision. A blister has now risen underneath what looks like a developing callus. No wonder it was sore. Oops. I should back down from any hand-sewing until it heals but there is still the apron itself which needs to be edged on all four sides. Thank goodness it's just a large rectangle. I guess I could hold off on finishing it until I got home from the demo and just wear it 'raw', but then I'd be afraid to wash the thing before I could complete the stitching. So that finger better heal quickly. I gots work to do!
I've been winnowing down my list of foods to prepare for the demo. I am to feed 14 Viking-era reenactors breakfast and lunch. They're on their own for dinner as most of them are hotelling it anyway at night. I won't be - I'll be sleeping in one of my tents. Our group leader promised sausages. I rolled my eyes at that one as he hadn't actually consulted me when he started making promises to our two guest groups - I don't even know if sausages were eaten by the Norse during that time! Yay, leader! (He also promised Scotch Eggs but I drew metaphoric blood from him on that one.) So far this is what I've got planned, keeping in mind that this is to be visible to the tourists:
Available during the day:
Dried cherries, plums, apricots (not many of those of course) and raisins
Walnuts & hazelnuts
hard-boiled eggs which are going to be SO COOL because I'm getting them from a guy who is raising heritage chickens and the eggs he has are white, tan, dark brown, light blue, darker blue, pinkish, and teal. No, really - teal!
Apples (Lady apples), cucumbers, and pears (Bosch? I'm not really sure which type to bring)
Breads, white cheeses, butter, lingonberry jam and honey
That should keep everyone going and show well to the tourists.
Breakfast, I think, will be mystron (barley cooked in beef broth) one day and oats cooked in water & blackberry juice with apples and honey the next. (I'm bringing canned balckberries since I won't have to keep them cold, and figured I might as well take advantage of the juice by putting it in with the sweet breakfast. I think some of the guys are going to balk about the mystron so I am planning on pre-cooking a lot of bacon and setting it out at the same time so the grumpy ones can snack on that while they get their courage up to eat a non-sweet morning dish. Or maybe I'll take pity on them and pack in a few raw eggs to be scrambled.
Lunch is going to be sausages (sigh) with stewed parsnips & carrots on Saturday followed by blackberries in cream. The next day will be meat pies (small ones, actually. I'm using empanada wrappers and filling them in advance. They should be easy for the cooks to fry in a bit of oil in the big pot. And we might try simply heating them on the frying pan since they are so small), celery stewed in chicken broth with onions, mushrooms, & young peas (or else bean soup - I haven't decided), griddle cakes made with walnut flour & fruit bits, followed by skyr mixed with berries or honey, as they'd like.
I think that should do it, both for combining protein & carbs, as well as being somewhat interesting to see by the tourists. I'm not doing any of the cooking over the fire, as it has been determined that I'm not safe without my glasses, so I have to make sure that the cooking will be easy to do by non-specialists. But I'm bringing a 'farby tent' and inside of that I'll have a coleman stove where I can do some of the cooking that my 'kitchen helpers' (everyone is tasked with 2 hours a day helping me) can't handle at the fire. Plus this time, for the first time, I can actually wash the dishes without having to wait for nightfall and the tourists to leave. That is going to be a huge relief! I'm bringing my normal camp kitchen's washing pans and can take care of all of that out of sight. Thank goodness.
