Post-Crown Update

It was very nice to have a March Crown with nice weather (especially given how icky that particular site gets when it's raining). On the other hand, the number of people who -- not trusting the weather, or for some other reason -- hotelled it or daytripped seemed to affect the social flow in noticeable ways. Sunday morning, in particular, I ended up wandering around a lot not quite finding enough meat to the event for it to make sense to stay. (Which isn't to say I didn't find good company to hang with in my perambulations -- I just try to avoid plunking myself down in a single spot for an extended period.)

The perambulations were more fulfilling on Saturday. Lots of enjoyable conversations and good food. (Yay cheeeeeese!) I managed to miss the Order of the Golden Poppy meeting Saturday morning -- which evidently took considerable talent on my part. (Not sure why the Poppies need a meeting in the first place, but I'd dragged myself out of a warm bed to try to make it.) Showed up 10 minutes after the time given in e-mail, only to find no one there and figured it had either been exceedingly short or cancelled. Found out later that it had been moved to half an hour later and, in theory, had been announced by the heralds, which is where the talent comes in because at that time I was hanging out in a pavilion a stone's throw away from where the meeting was scheduled and directly facing on it. So I must have been both deaf and blind. Ah well. I also ended up missing the evening ball, since it was oppose etaine_pommier's Virtue Roundtable, which I'd gone so far as to do advance research and study for. The roundtable was interesting. Some people came to discuss philosophy; other people seemed to have ... less room for entertaining ideas they didn't already hold.

To continue the completely out-of-order event report, I fulfilled my not-entirely-spontaneous and not-entirely-random dinner guest program by hosting aureellia (and still managed to forget to hand over the dishes I've been trying to get back to her for several months). The menu is(  under the cut.  )

One of the things that drives me crazy about trying to do fine dining at camping events is how to keep food hot. I seem to have hit on a useful trick, inspired by the "lidded bowl" serving style from the Perfectly Period Feast. The various vegetable dishes were served up in wooden bowls, covered by another similar bowl. (I recovered the dishes after serving.) Not only was the food hot when we sat down, but when I was putting away leftovers at the end of dinner they were still warm. Success! I don't think ceramic bowls would have worked as well in this context, since they'd start out as heat sinks and would also lose heat more quickly to the air.

The one unhappy item was that when I sat down to dinner I realized that I'd lost one of my rings (a very plain wire band with a 2mm cabochon emerald that I got from Gaukler many years ago). I think it must have fallen off at some point during dinner prep, and I searched the ground thoroughly while packing up without finding it, so it's possible that it's in the bottom of one of my kitchen boxes somewhere. Not a ring with sentimental value in the slightest, but I do hate losing things.

Saturday morning I had the chance to do some close examination and detailed construction notes on joycebre's trestle table, with the intention of copying the design (with the maker's permission). Some very clever techniques there, and I think I may even be able to re-use the legs from my current tables for this design (with some additional work on them, of course). That would save a lot of work and wood, if so.

I skirted the edges of a couple of courts, but as usual my interests didn't intersect very strongly with the "official" parts of the event. More and more I'm finding myself prioritizing events where I can simply "do medieval stuff" as opposed to "doing SCA stuff". And to finish up with some totally random items: Yay for joycebre getting offered a Laurel! Yay for j_i_m_r's home-made cheese! Boo for nothing in merchant's row I wanted to spend money on! Yay for my new chamber pot! Dammit for missing the chicken divination!

ETA: Chicken Divination on YouTube