Budget Cookery

The annual College Challenge Tournament traditionally consists of three parts: the rapier tourney, the armoured tourney and the cookery competition. This year's cookery competition was themed "Cooking on a Budget" (in true College student style) and entrants were constricted to a budget of $15. I made two dishes.

Fish Pie

(from http://www.godecookery.com/nboke/nboke60.html)

NOTES

I used herring fillets, pine nuts, almonds, dates and sultanas for the filling. Instead of cloves I used mixed spice but the other spices are the same. In true spirit of the recipe I did not make the pastry myself but got my pastry-cook (i.e. Rosie) make extra from the dish she was making. Probably this just means I need to practice making pastry. It is a simple pastry with flour, butter, eggs, water and salt.

Also for decoration a fish shape has been crafted out of pastry as the lid to warn eaters that though it looks like a fruit pie, sea creatures lurk within.

COSTING

Herring fillets $4.40, dates: $1.73, almonds & Pine Nuts $3.76, sultanas, oil, sugar, spices $0.00 (already had some), flour $1.25, butter $1.75, eggs $1.59

Total $14.48

Though weird in principle to be eating fish and fruit in one mouthful, it was surprisingly tasty. The filling ended up quite dry and crumbly however.

Mortreus de Chare

(from http://www.godecookery.com/nboke/nboke79.html)

NOTES

As I could not find any pork mince I ended up buying pork sausages and de-skinning them. I found this worked quite well as the sausage meat was ground quite a lot finer than mince usually is, this would have helped with the setting of the meatloaf.

I made the breadcrumbs myself by toasting bread in the oven and crumbling it. I also added an extra egg yolk because it looked like it needed it.

The tower decoration was made out of pastry scraps from my other dish.

COSTING

Pork Sausages $5.30, ale $3.70, bread crumbs, spices $0.00, eggs $1.59

Total $10.59

This was really tasty - the pork was tender and juicy.

To my surprise the Fish Pie won, and the pork loaf came second *embarrassed* But I was very proud considering I don't consider myself a cook of any great skill and often go the Baker's Delight route for potlucks. Definitely going to do more cooking for potlucks from now on.

All Hallow's Eve Masque Ball

Aneala's yearly Ball this year was a masque, and we were encouraged to have a go at the "fantastical masque" styles of the late 16th century. Of course I just had to, as the styles are completely different from anything we do normally and looked like a lot of fun.

I took my inspiration from this Inigo Jones sketch (http://http//www.elizabethancostume.net/masque/index.html) of a masquer playing a River Nymph.

I decided that the components of my costume would be a bodiced petticoat with a faux chemise over the top (affectionately referred to as the "midriff chemise"), a petticoat skirt (changed at the last minute to be a blue petticoat with a lace overskirt), a half length petticoat skirt, and an underbust corset with triangles of lacy stuff hanging off it. I mostly tried to use fabric I already had and would never use for anything else.

For the mask, I wasn't sure what to do. In the inspiration picture she isn't wearing a mask, and I think this is because the theory was that for these types of things, the whole costume was the mask, more of a whole body disguise than just a face covering. So I wanted to make the face covering reflect the rest of the costume. In the end I made a tiara type thing and attached big drapes of chiffon to the back (like in the picture) and the front (not like in the picture). The look I ended up with was somewhat "Princess Jasmine" and was I think what led to a number of people commenting on how nice my "Middle Eastern garb" was but it was the look I was after so I don't really mind.

More details on construction: The bodiced petticoat I was hoping to use for other outfits so it is made out of linen, interlined in the front with cotton canvas. It closes at the front with hooks and eyes. It is machine sewn with hand finishing. The chemise is made out of shantung look satin and is a simple square necked Italian style chemise. Instead of being gathered to a band the neckline and arm holes are gathered into strips of blue braid. The corset is navy velveteen and boned with cable ties. The idea here wasn't for it to be really tight, just to make a smooth line over where all the skirts are fastened and I think it looked quite nice. The petticoats were all thrown together from various bits and pieces I had lying around (apart from the bottom layer blue petticoat, that is from one of my first outfits).

And now, the unveiling:

I will talk a little bit about Lachlahn's outfit as well because I also made that. I took the inspiration from a book Rosalind had. I actually took a picture of the relevant page for exactly this type of thing but my phone has run off and so I can't put the picture up here. Anyway, the images in the book were slightly later period (early 17th), in particular the skirts were a lot shorter. I chose to tweak the design slightly to be more like a German Waffenrock with much longer skirts, like the guy in the woodcut. In keeping with the "soldier" look I attempted to make a helmet out of cardboard as his mask (as the original inspiration picture had one) but I didn't have enough time to do it properly and botched it. Instead he has a quick-last-minute-rummage-through-discount-bin-at-Spotlight affair.

Basically he is wearing a Tudor shirt, hose, and a man-dress. The man dress is square necked, made out of (significantly un-period) white brocade with handsewn gold braid trim. The skirts and skirt lining are not attached to each other, instead just hemmed individually as I was worried attaching them might affect the drape of the skirts. The outer skirt is bound with bias binding and the lining is zig zag stitched.

Finally, I was really proud of how the St Basil kids really took to the theme and had a go themselves. We went through pictures together and figured out what common elements of the outfits were (mostly layered skirts, drapy fabric, sashes) and a heap of people went away and designed their own costumes. I think St Basil made up at least half of the people who attempted "fantastical masque" outfits so I was super proud. Not to mention Alana won the Golden Rose Bardic Competition, making her the Anealan Bard for the next year (with a song she wrote herself and sang while playing the psaltery she made herself), Aoife came runner up in the same competition, and Edmund won the Best Male Garb competition. Also, 7 St Basil people were involved in the play that was performed *is very very proud*

Back Row, L-R: Adamo of St Lazarus in home decorated mask, Elizabeth of St Basil as a fairy, me, Renonys of St Basil as a Sun, Edmund Lyon of Sterling in his new Tudor court garb, Annelyne and Lavaeolus

Front Row, L-R: Alanna Galliwood as a dryad, Aoife with awesome ribbon sleeves as an unthemed masquer, and Aimee as the ocean.

Finally, for more photos of this really cool event, Alianore put an album up on her facebook: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=13357&id=1685283854&page=4#/album.php?aid=13357&id=1685283854&page=2

A New SCAdventure

Yes, I know, its cheesy. I blame Nancy.

Anyway, this is where I am going to be putting all of my projects and photos and ramblings about the stuff I do in the SCA. I'm not expecting a lot of people to be reading this but if you happen to be comments are appreciated so I know when I'm being stalked :D

So, I'm Sophie, known at the moment as Lady Gillian Attwood in the SCA. I say currently because I'd like to change that sometime to another name I like more but in an effort to not confuse people more should it be rejected I am waiting til its registered to officially tell people its changed.

I live in Aneala in the Canton of Aachenfeld and am a member of the College of St Basil the Great. I have been Seneschal of the College for the last two years but will be passing that office on in March. My interests in the SCA include garb-making, (anything and everything, pretty much but I do a lot of English Tudor) embroidery, cooking, singing, dancing, brewing (though my few attempts have been rather faily), archery, rapier, heavy combat, and nothing else really springs to mind right now but I'm sure there's lots of other stuff I do.

So I'm going to start here by writing up projects I've done in the last six months or so scattered in with musings and current projects and etc.

To finish off, here is Gillian looking rather Tudor and rather industrious with some embroidery (and also rather scandalous, GASP bare forearms) at a camping weekend.