Ars Gratia Artis

So, since Angelique has moved to Seattle, we have been watching the boys 1-2 days every weekend. This is nice, in that their father gets some help in caring for them and we get the opportunity to play with them at least once a week. Baby Ry has, for as long as we have known him, never crawled in our presence. He’s pretty mellow, nothing ever really seemed to upset him enough to make him want to move. However, over the past few weekends, I’ve been slinging him for an hour or so when he gets tired (but is not ready to sleep) so that he can enjoy being held without me losing the ability to use both arms. It’s also a nice way to distribute his weight across my back instead of on one spot on my body.

However, last evening, I was both cooking and canning (see later in entry), and I did not want baby around all that heat. So I put him down on the living room floor. I heard him objecting in the mellow way he does, and the next thing I heard was a series of sequential slapping sounds. I look out to the living room and, Lo and behold! Mr. Boy is crawling with all determination towards the kitchen. I managed to get Micheal to capture a couple of short clips of him crawling for his mama. They are online here and here if you would like to help me delight in teh cute that is my baby Ry. The st00pid Nana squeeky voice is a goobery amusement, too.

Eh, now that he’s crawling for sure, I’ll have to clean the floors. Damn. I can take messy floors because it’s easier and less time consuming to just not eat off the floor and wash my feet than it is to keep about 1800 sq feet of floor space clean enough for a crawling baby, but I guess it’s time to get on it for now. These are the days I wish I was the sort of Laurel who insists on receiving service from her apprentices. Of course, as they don’t live in the same state, much less anywhere near my house, being that sort of Laurel would not be helpful here, anyway, but nonetheless, it was a nice fantasy for 3 seconds or so.

Speaking of cookery

So, in a bit I’ll add a couple of to-do lists for some of the events I’m planning to attend, and one of the things that’s confronting me is the need to conform to the Lenten foodways* I have accepted AND not ping anyone’s issue. Thus, a new A&S 50 project is born, and I am starting to build a menu of food I can eat, that will meet my extremely high protein needs without soy and without, eh, non-land creatures.

Last night I put up 2 two-cup jars of vegetarian (Lenten) Gourds in Pottage, according to the recipe linked above, with the addition of gangleal, fennel, and pepper. A 2 cup jar is enough for two side servings or one meal with bread. So, there’s 2 lunches down. I am somewhat torn about canning as a food preservation method, but the practical fact is that it is simply the best solution. I can get as much stuff preserved in oil or dried or whatever as I can, but there will be some things, like beans and soups and stews, et cetera, that I am simply not going to have time to cook on site–nor do I wish to invest that much in propane for the cookstove. As I have mentioned previously, we don’t do an in-ground fire pit at our encampment, so the best period-cooking method for me is a brazier. I have a little cast iron restaurant grill and a little brass censer which will both function efficiently as braziers for the 1-2 coals I’ll need for heating food. I had thought about buying the fancy dancy cooking braziers that Eadric and Hroar make, but I blew my money for that sort of thing on a fry pan. Really, I should have gotten a saucepan, because I already have a ceramic and 2 cast iron fry pans that will function as needed and are period materials if imperfect in period appearance, but I did what I did and I’m not sorry.

Planning for Pennsic first draft

1. Loose some weight so the heat will be less dreadful. Same crap, different year.

2. Refurbish thrones!

A. Refinish

B. Cushions for seat back.

3. Spice rack .

A. Wooden box?

B. Jars and containers

4. 3 sets linen underwear and bathhouse outfits.

5. Outfits for K and R.

A. Oil painted patches of their heraldry.

I don’t really need to have stuff ready for the boys to go to Pennsic, but I have set that as a deadline to get something done for them.

Planning for 35 year anniversary

1. Yellow under dress

*square neckline with simple blackwork embroidery

*fur cuffs for dress

*Tudor badge?

2. Letter class

3. Blank tables class

4. Traveling lunch — have a day off Lenten restrictions.

*cheese/cheesecake (from fresh cheese made earlier this month)

*bread

*gelly of pigs feet?

*pork & apple pasty?

*fruit

5. Repair presence

6. Prepare blank painting project

I’ve already done some mental rough-drafting for the letters class. So I don’t lose those thoughts, I’ll write the points here quickly, in no special order: 1. Letters function as documents. 2. You don’t need fancy materials 3. It’s a way in which an SCA practice can make your modern life better. 4. The letters do not have to be long. 5. Examples of letters I’ve sent. 6. Don’t have to be written in Early Modern English, proper American/Canadian English of the 21st c. will do. 7. Henry VIII established a rudimentary post office, so consider the modern USPS/CPC the descendant of that, and don’t be afraid to use it. Otherwise, consider that you’re hiring a servant to carry your letter for a mere $.41. 7a. Ways in which letters might be delivered within the SCA. 8. Display Jacobean document. 9. Direct to list of paintings with letters, other resources. 10. And of course, components of period letters. 11. Possibly, assist folks to write one before leaving class.

Tale of Two Olive Oils

One of the more problematic aspects of my current food practices is the loss of dairy and the inability to use soy substitutes. I have been able to locate rice and almond milk, but other than that, it’s a wash, and neither one has worked up into a nice creamy sauce yet. I’m still trying to figure that out.

Enter olive oil:

The first is a set of balsamic vinegars and flavored olive oil from a gourmet oil & vinegar shop about 3 blocks from my office. Very expensive. Very tasty. Very expensive.

The second set is a subversive church purchase, at $15 a bottle, of fair trade Palestinian olive oils. from a company called, appropriately enough, Canaan Fair Trade. It loves both the Liberal and the SCAdian in me. It doesn’t have the impressive flavor of the gourmet olive oils on the one hand, but on the other, it’s not the flavorless crap one buys at the grocers. And it hasn’t been tormented the way grocery store oils have been–there is still sediment from the pressing in the bottle. It’s brilliant. I’ll be buying quite a lot. Good oil, more like period product, and helps support Palestinian farmers? Big win, all around.

Too much to do to keep writing, and gosh, this has gone on long enough.
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*Of course, I will certainly plan on breaking that fast to have a steak sandwich and cobbler at the Fruity Cobbler (maybe even twice, yummmmmm). And coffee at Your Inner Vagabond. And.. and.. And, really, as I have said a thousand times, Pennsic is a whole alternate universe that must be experienced with patience and faith, but, oh, the investment on your return is so fabulous that, for many people, even if you do nothing else in the SCA, you’ll do Pennsic. I digress. Big surprise.