Reflections on an Event: Fall Coronation 2015

Fall Coronation has come and gone once again, the start of our Trimarian new year in many regards, and as always it was an ending of old and beginning of new. In future posts this week I will delve deeper into the feast, but for now an overview of my time.

I had an utter bast all weekend. We started a new site for Kingdom events and I fell in love right away. Long winding paths, deep woods and a beautiful lake adorned the camp and the stars at night were just beautiful to spy while laying in the grass. My only concern is the actual lack of light on site, without a lamp or flashlight of some kind is a must to avoid any pitfalls while traveling. The kitchen is quite lovely, an important feature for me obviously, and the hall is in such a great grid for planning designs. I think this site is going to be a wonderful addition to our Kingdom and well used for years to come.

As always, my personal connections with people changes at this event. Andi and I got to welcome a new person into our household with Jason accepting an apprentice belt, and I felt we really bonded over the weekend even more. My friendship and love for Kristen and the Butterflies continues to grow, many of them going out of their way to be overly kind in ways I could never expect. The Butterflies made me cry in good ways all the time, and I hope to find some way to repay them. I got to spend some quality time with many new SCA friends, deepen my friendship with others and made some brand new friends as we bonded over food!

I was very happy to see my wife recognized with an award in Court, and was quite surprised by my own given to me at the end of feast by the King. Many good friends and good people got well deserved awards and honors, and seeing peoples smiles when given gifts of favors always touches my heart. Seeing such great acts and lovely behavior inspires me, inspires me to be better and improve in the year to come.

The tradition is at new years that you make a "resolution", a promise of a thing you will do in the upcoming year. I feel like this is a thing I should do, and I know I can accomplish this goal because I have friends and family that will support me. My Trimarian new year resolution is that I will become a Gulf Wars Champion with this years Art/Sci entry.

What's yours?

Preparations of a Feast Part 5

So far we've talked about the food culture, what food is being served, its flavor profile and appearance. Today, in my final post before the event, I want to talk about how you the guest should go into my feast to get the best eating experience.

When you sit down, the table will be decorated simply. This is done intentionally, to help you get into the simplistic mindset that the food will be dwelling in. Chopsticks will be provided for each guest, though not required it is highly encouraged that you eat with them to get the best experience. The chopsticks are very important, they will control your portioning as well as keep you eating each bite in the proper method. Japanese food culture evolved around chopsticks, using them will help you best experience this.

On the table before you will be some paper explaining much f what's on the table, and encouraging you to explore it. Once table service has begun, drinks will be served to refresh and prepare the palette for the food that will be consumed. The first course will be served as it would be for the Shogun himself, the dishes will  be announced and one at a time will they be presented. The Shogun (in this case TRM Trimaris) will approve the first course and the dishes will be given to the populous. The dishes can be eaten in any order or combination, each "course" is designed for all the food to be eaten as one, but there is a recommended order to trying them and the servers will bring the dishes in that order. 

With my artistic pieces, the servers will present this dish then read a haiku for the table. This poem pertains to the dish, it is meant to be pondered and considered as it is eaten to better enjoy, or if you wish to abstain then to simply admire the art and think on what the poem means to you. 

Each course will be brought out in such order, until the meal is complete. Take your time, enjoy each bite and relish the flavors as they blend and work within you. Your bites will be small due to the chopsticks, savor each one. Enjoy the work put before you, and let it inspire you and cause you to think of your own art that you endeavor. This is simple pleasures, simple joys of nourishment and companionship. Let the meal slowly ebb and flow into you like the tide, in no hurry and at its own pace.

For those sitting in my special seating, your experience will be quite similar but still has its unique qualities. Beyond the room decoration, each place setting will be provided for you. You will dine on pillows as is tradition, and will be honored guests of the Shogun and thus will be served by the head cook directly. It will be a fun time for everyone!

Thank you for following this progress, and for supporting me in this endeavor. This feast is by far the most complex I've ever done, and it is a labor of love not just by me but my friends and family as well. Expect a recap of the meal after the event.

Preparations for a Feast Part 4

As I said in a previous entry, one of the things I felt the need to touch on was how important the image of the food was to the meal itself. Yes the mood had to taste good, yes the food have to taste CORRECT (which I covered in Part 3); but almost as importantly the food had to LOOK artistic as well. Especially considering the “optional” food dishes, this is a topic I want to discuss in depth here.

    In Japanese high culture, art was the thing. The house was designed with art in mind, the clothing was an art, the weapons and armor had an artistic bent and to that even the food was artistic in nature. It was a sign of high culture, of refinement, that you were able to produce not only a good tasting meal but a good looking one at that. Understanding the artistic styles and applying them to food was an amazing gift that was meant to be shared, this is an aspect I am trying to emulate upcoming feast.

    So let’s talk about that, shall we? The food itself is to be a work of art, so it must look the part. Sauces will be carefully placed, not to smear or dribble about in presentation. Vegetables and fruit will be cut as square and clean as possible, to show off the angles of the cut. Plating will be warm and inviting, food will be arranged to create shapes or images (like my Triskle Chesnut design I’m gonna do) and the colors will be vibrant to stand out against the stark white serving gear. The idea for this artistic display is to heighten the taste of the food and appreciation for the skill of the artisan crafting it. It wasn’t just what was served on, it was the served items themselves.

    Another aspect to this style is food designed for appreciation, not so much for eating. A massive show of wealth, these were dishes that used inedible ingredients for color/shape or were often not that tasty. You were meant to reflect upon the nature of the dish, see what the dish meant to you, perhaps hear a haiku read about such a dish or just appreciate the artistic touch gone into crafting it. I have three such dishes, mine will all be edible because food science has given me a modern edge, and each is unique in its theme. The Pine Cone Tofu will be a baked tofu shaped to look like a pine cone and covered in sweet spices, it is shaped to look like a pine cone before it releases its seeds in promise of new life. The Uji River is designed to resemble the mighty river in the thaws of spring and new beginnings, Udon noodles dyed blue will run along the caramel colored sauce with pieces of Nori carefully placed along the sides to represent the green hills. Lastly is my Blue Sea Soup, a chilled cold soup of fruit juice dyed blue and topped with fresh made whip cream waves (fish shaped mochi topped with red bean paste will be served on the side which go delightfully well with the tasty dessert). 

    These dishes will be something amazing to look at, and I eagerly look forward to sharing them with my guests. This whole feast experience has been amazing, and I want to thank you for following along with me thus far. I have one last post to write before the big day, on how people who eat the food to get the full experience, which will come out soon. Stay tuned!

Preparations of a Feast Part 3

Couple of things before we get into the meat and potatoes of this post:

I recently did a redesign of my blog layout. I wanted it to be easier for everyone to read, I tagged similar posts so you could read specific posts and hopefully made this a better experience for you. Any feedback you have would be appreciated!

I did change my URL for this blog, so if you keep me bookmarked please update with the new URL above!

It’s still a work in progress, and I plan on doing more redesign work in the next few weeks. Stay tuned!

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In my last post, one of the things I said I wanted to discuss was the flavor profiles of the food for this feast. The food here will be different than what most people with a Western palate are used to dining on, even more so for period food in the SCA. Japan, and other “Eastern” cultures in many extents, had a unique flavoring and seasoning palate for their food. For Japan, especially during the Edo Period, this style of cooking was already well settled into the cultural ideals and thus we have a fantastic view on not just how they viewed food but culture as well.

In French of English cooking, the use of spice and varied cooking techniques was designed to transform the food. Take the steak and vegetables, change the flavor with spice and styles of cooking, adjust and transform. All this is wonderful food, and I have cooked plenty Western styles of dish to a rousing success. But I can’t do that here...that’s not how it was done in Japan. In their style of cooking, the Japanese did not test their culinary art in how they could change the flavor of the dish but how they could accept and highlight the natural flavor of the ingredients and dish. This has been a challenge!

Take for example my Fresh Crane Soup. There are a number of challenges involved with this dish that I had to struggle with, and I want to use this as an example of Japanese flavor profiling. The Japanese viewed crane as a delicacy, something for the upper nobility, and thus this was a carefully crafted dish. The soups of Japan were more like broths, meant to prep the body for a meal and not to be a meal unto itself, so had light flavor and were served warm-to-hot to enhance the flavor. You boil and cook with natural complimenting ingredients so the flavor isn’t lost, and the soup is the lead in of another major dish. Had miso before? That’s another great example.

And thus the challenge begins. Crane is not something viable for me to get in bulk, so I had to substitute for duck (which one document I read says happened regularly as the the flavors were very close in taste). I had to unlearn everything I knew about making soup, just to perfect this dish. Instead of a chunky meal-type dish, I had to minimalize the amount of meat that would be in the soup without sacrificing flavor. To enhance I’m adding mushrooms and light spice to season, these will compliment the taste of the bird as well as enhance the flavor of the soup. I will serve is more on the warm side than the hot, to mellow a bit of the sharpness from one of the ingredients added as it blends best when warmed. The portions will be small, maybe 4/6oz of soup at MAX to not overindulge the flavor onto the guest. This way you are getting the natural, enhanced flavor of the soup expressed how it “should be”. This will be done for every dish.

That’s another thing I feel needs to be discussed with flavor, portion sizes. Along with the correct flavor, the correct AMOUNT of the flavor is also an important thing to take note on. In Western styles of cooking you would pile meats and sauces and vegetables high, you ate larger portions because there would be (on average) less dish options available. In this Japanese style each portion is carefully measured and weighed out to match not just the flavor but its place in the meal. My first course is SEVEN dishes, which means portion sizes will be small and gradually increase in small doses as the meal progresses. What that means is each guest will be given a 4/6oz portion of soup, 2/3 bites of pickle, 2 bird skewers, 3/4 chestnuts, one long and thick chopstick wrap of oolong noodle, etc. Each bite is carefully planned for so by the end of the meal the guest is comfortably full, each flavor is appreciated in kind and no one dish overpowers another. 

On my next post I will be discussing the illusion food aspect that I will attempt with each dish, how important it was to the dining experience and what you can expect to see at the event!

Preparations of a Feast Part 2

So in my last post we did a general overview of what is to be served at 30th year, today we discuss exactly what will be served. My menu for the event is thus:

Main Tray (Course 1)

Furesshukurēnsūpu 

(Fresh Crane soup)

Pikurusu

(Pickles)

Hakumai

(White Rice)

Kushi ni chīsana tori

(Small Birds on Skewers)

Ujigawa

(Uji River)

Kuri

(Chestnuts)

Painkōn tōfu

(Pine cone Tofu)

Second Tray (Course 2)

Fujisan no sarada

(Mt. Fuji salad)

Misoshiru

(Miso soup)

Sashimi

Jā-yaki sunaipu

(Grilled Snipe in Jars)

Edomaesushi

Third Tray (Course 3)

Mochigome

(Sweet rice)

Mikan to anto furūtsu

(Tangerines and Ant Fruit)

Burūshīsūpu

(Blue Sea Soup)

That sure does look like a lot of food, doesn’t it? A proper meal arranged like this does contain many dishes, but portion control is king in this style. One of the things to remember is that the primary eating utensil of the time was chopsticks, so each bite is designed to be properly sized for chopsticks. As well, each person can only eat so much food, and it was rude to snub a dish that was provided for you so culturally at least a bite was required. Over so many dishes, across such a wide variety of food, you would end up eating small amounts of each dish to be full in time for the end of the meal!

So when my guests sit down to dine at 30th year, they will not see mountains and piles of food on a plate but delicate and calculated portions. This is important for each of my guests to understand, so much so that I have created special cue cards for all my servers detailing not just things like ingredients/allergies but also portion sizes. Yes you may only be eating 2-3 pieces of sushi...but after already so much food will you really notice?

Another key detail is talking about some of the food itself. When a Western culture-raised individual thinks of a soup, perhaps you imagine hearty chunks of food and a creamy broth in a full bowl. You’re not wrong, and I’m hungry just thinking about it but that is not the Period Japanese style in terms of soup. A soup for them was light, sometimes savory or sweet, a deep rich broth filled with unique flavor. The soup was not a meal in itself, it was meant to be a part of a meal. With my Fresh Crane Soup for example, there will not be huge chunks of meat floating around to snag; it will be a delicate broth meant to add flavor, heighten anticipation for the next item and compliment the meal. 

Flavor profiles are something huge I also need to discuss, and will in my next post to more detail. Japanese valued a simple style in their art, and food was most definitely an art! You were meant to appreciate and admire the flavor of the white rice, the simple pleasure of melting tuna in edomaesushi, the crisp bite of eggplant or the rich soy flavor in a noodle. These are dishes not heavily spiced, or flavored to change the taste profile; these dishes were meant to be enjoyed as the flavor stood. Light seasoning to enhance the flavor will happen, and there is so much more I need to touch on this that i will on my next post.

In one last example, and another that I’m realizing needs a post all to itself, Japanese food of this period relied heavily on illusion and subtly. The art was not just in how it tastes, but how it looked. This is where things changed dramatically, yes the white rice was supposed to taste like rice but it was also supposed to be sculpted and shaped to look like a swan! Illusion food was such a commonplace that much of the text doesn’t even talk about how you should go out of your way to accomplish this; at the end it offhandedly talks about how you should make the food look. There are even dishes that are served that you are not required, or sometimes not even intended, to eat! The whole purpose of these dishes is to admire, reflect on what they mean to you and let their appearance and beauty enhance your eating experience. I have 3 such dishes in this feast alone; the Uji River, the Mt Fuji salad and the Blue Sea soup (all of which I will be discussing in detail in said next blog post).

What you can take away from this is that the food is going to be art, not just in visual style but in taste. It is my goal to preserve and enhance the natural flavors within each dish, to shape them to be visually pleasing and give my guests a unique dining experience they many not have had before in Trimaris. Portions will be small, but the whole meal will be filing with each bite.

Next time, I will dive deeper into the flavor profiles of my meals. Stay tuned!

Eulogy for Camp Ocala

Camp Ocala for me has been the foundation of my time in the SCA. Many sites have changed, but so far in my life there has only ever been one kingdom site. I find it fitting that at the last event I was able to cook in the kitchen and serve feast one last time, which made my weekend all the more sweet. I have a bunch of fond memories of this site, but there are two right now that I'd like to record for my own sake. I hope you enjoy this small trip with me down memory lane.

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 My first kingdom event was TMT, Mideon and Rose were the crown at the time and my friend Ever had someone convinced me to call out of work for 3 days of the hottest weekend in the year to camp. I sat and watched my first crown Lyst that weekend, I fell in love with the contest and have tried to see every crown lyst I can ever since. I remember I sat under the An Crosaire pavilion, next to Ever and she told me a bit about each fighter. I later got up and helped her with waterbearing, which got me up close to the action.

At that first TMT, Ever had managed to get me into the retaining schedule. She and I had talked about it before hand and I thought it would be a great time, this was also the first time I would meet my now friend Kristin. She gave me a once over and asked if I wouldn't mind doing "party detail" for His Majesty that night. At the time I thought this was just dandy, because party detail seemed pretty simple. Inhad one major task beyond the usual retainer duties: make sure His Majeaty did not have an empty cup.

As we traveled to the first party, His Majesty requested a drink from the "bar" in his mug and I happily had the beverage poured. I did one of my favorite activities (people-watching) while keeping an eye on His Majesty and the mug. As the liquid got lower I started to eye all the bar and figure out how to refill the glass, but the King had other plans. He had tried a sip of the drink from another individual and changed his mind to wanting that. He asked that I fill his mug with the new drink, and I asked him where I should pour out the last of his old drink. He gave me a laugh and told me to just "kill it quick" and top him off, so I finished the last of the drink and refilled his mug.

Little did I know this would be the normal situation, and party detail quickly became a challenge as we both got more and more drunk into the night.

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This was the first site that I took Sarah to,  when we started dating. I took her to MMM, another Crown Lyst, and we had a blast. Seeing the event through her eyes as she experienced it was a joy, and making sure she met Ever and all my other friends was vital. She helped set up a pavilion (Brenna and Kro's in fact), she began to scribe with Lana for the first time and we both got to bear water together while my friends Jake and Karou fenced under the big oak tree.

My favorite moment of that was late in the night, walking along the waterline and is sharing a kiss and some quiet time. The sounds of laughter, the smells of fire wafted, but for a few moments it was just the two of us. It was the first time that I really felt a lasting connection with Sarah, that maybe this relationship would be different from any other I had in the past.

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I have so many wonderful memories from the site, and I'm sure I'll post more stories as I feel inspired. But these were two things that stood out to me today in reflection.

Reflections on a Feast - TMT 2015

AndBefore I begin, I want to emphasize to any of my readers that the purpose of this blog is for me. It is a place I can reflect on my experiences and share my works, but most importantly it is a place for me to be brutally honest about what I do so I can learn. It helps me to explore why things work or don't, and give me things to look back on.

For starters, this was a very rough feast for me.

I'm not saying this was a bad feast, in many ways it was a success. Food was good, plenty of noms for folks, the shtick was lovely and everyone dining had a great time. Most people never really saw the cracks in the foundation either, which is also a success. This feast, by many standards of measurement, was a success and thus was a good feast. But this doesn't make it smooth or less than rough.

1) Feast Planning - My first stumbling blocks were at the very beginning with my feast planning. Now I had plenty of work into this, many test feasts and culinary food runs helped me plan this one out months before. I had a good firm foundation of planning, but things distracted me towards the end. The stress and strain of my job, combined with the stress and strain that this began to put on my relationships, distracted me.

What this caused was me to make a quite dramatic mathematical error in planning my shopping. While shopping for dry goods it wasn't too obvious, but as the food numbers began to add up with the produce and meat I was suddenly made quite aware. This was a rocky start to my weekend, which I had to scramble to correct. It also became difficult because I had purchased many dry ingredients slowly over the weeks and in many ways I overbought on too much.

As well, in the hustle and bustle many small items got left. My feast box had many pieces missing that I forgot to account for, and some really vital equipment didn't make it to site. This made me have to shuffle around to deal with site equipment, and more often than not I did not have everything I needed to provide to my volunteers.

2) On Site Prep (Friday/Saturday) - Friday was a long day. Yes I completed every task I needed to, but I poorly scheduled out many items. I was so focused on accomplishing prep goals on Friday that i overloaded myself on tiny tasks to get done. There were several small things that I should had done earlier in the week to make my life easier (see previous mention of former job stress being a distraction) that instead I tried to cram into the event and clogged me quite a bit.

Another thing that really hurt me was injuring myself. Yes I have hurt myself before (and probably will in the future), but the severity of this injury shook my confidence and really wrecked me. I was being cocky, cutting too much too quickly, and took a nice chunk out of my pinky. It bled for 2 hours, the wound gaped open and by all rights I should have simply gotten stitches. But I didn't, on reflection a poor choice. This made me go a bit unhinged and took the wind out of my sails.

What I mean by this is that while I normally have a great confidence in my ability, after 2 hours of being stuck and bleeding I started to second guess everything I did. I got nervous, uncomfortable and unsure. Dishes I had been practicing for months I wanted to suddenly change, I was unsure of portion control. Thank the gods I had my Laurel and one of my best cooking friends in the kitchen for me, to sometimes even smack me around when I needed it.

When I get nervous and uncomfortable, I start to get very micromanagie. I want my hands on everything, to grab and hold it tight when I don't feel I'm in control. More times than not this weekend I was in total control, but because I did not feel it I caused nothing but issues. There were times Madhavi had to force me away from a thing, because I just didn't need to be involved in what was going on.

3) Clean-up/departure - With my original clean-up plans falling through several times, having grabbed someone to cover the food replacement plan was nice. I still had issues here, because now that nerves were over I wasn't as focused on clean-up as I should have been. I don't feel I was polite to my fellow Cook and I felt like I did not set her up for success as much as I'd like to. I tried to get my things out as early as I could muster, but I know I was still muchly in her way.

As far as food removal, I feel I was less than stellar. I know I grabbed my leftovers that I knew were staged, but I know for a fact I left dry goods by accident on site. I fear I may have left more, and hopefully a good beat down from Wolfmom will better help me correct myself in the future. 

I know that there is a lot of things I did well, a lot of kitchen wizardry I pulled from my hood to make some magic happen. The food tasted great, the portions worked and every guest had an amazing time. But I feel it's important to recognize not just my successes, but my mistakes. It's how I learn, it's how I grow as a person and an apprentice. 

Next post will be much more positive, as well as a discussion of my favorite moments. But for today, I acknowledge my mistakes and am happy to have the learning experience.