It's been an incredibly busy summer/autumn. Since the last post (six months ago!) I have taken 2 Modern Maker workshops, researched 16th century Ottoman hats and çaprast closures, written and taught classes on both topics, planned, cooked and served a Roman themed Royal Luncheon, made a mostly hand sewn 16th century Italian gown, researched collarless 16th century Italian partlets and planned, cooked and served a Vigil table for Mistress Leda's elevation this past weekend. I may write about the other projects at a later date (or, knowing my penchant for procrastinating on blogging, I may not), but I want to write about Mistress Leda's elevation while it is fresh in my mind.
There were actually two parts: a "Last Night as an Apprentice" party on Friday night and the actual Vigil Saturday morning/afternoon.
Friday night was a "Tavern Food" theme. I made two recipes I'd used from the Royal Luncheon at Red Tower: The Strong Garlic Cheese and the Olive Relish, using redactions from The Classical Cookbook.
The Garlic Cheese recipe is from the poem Moretum, commonly attributed to Virgil. (Dalby 105) although I have taken liberties with the recipe. The first time (for the Royal Lunch taste-test) was as redacted and with the full amount of garlic suggested.. While tasty, there was so much garlic that it was spicy. It also needs to be at room temperature to be malleable enough to eat.
I've made it twice since then and find that half the garlic is still garlicky enough for garlic lovers. I also find that using white wine in far higher quantities than called for makes it easier to blend (even in my Vitamix) and easier to spread. The recipe specifically says it should not be spreadable, but I'm cooking for people to eat and spreadable cheese is just better for people to eat off a buffet.
The olive relish (essentially tapenade) I made exactly to Dalby's redaction. It's a tasty, easy to prepare recipe that I can make in large quantities. The one thing I learned from this recipe is that fresh rue is called ruda and available at foodie supermarkets, like Buford Farmer's Market.
There was plenty of (store-bought) cuban bread and some pretty amazing (if I say so myself) pudding shots with rumchata and bourbon cream to round out the table. If you try the pudding shots, Godiva makes an instant chocolate pudding, which I highly recommend.
Sadly, I did not get a single photo of the Friday night party. But it was after dark, so I'm not sure how photos would have turned out anyway.
The actual Vigil on Saturday afternoon was an English "Cream Tea" theme.
The menu was brandied peach tartlets, shortbread, lemon curd, conserve of oranges, scones (plain and current), gingerbread, banana muffins and assorted nuts and dates.
I've collected enough "hospitality table" dishes since Mistress Alessandra's elevation that the only thing I added were some cute little chalkboard signs that I used to label everything. I also had a master ingredients list in case of food allergies.
The food was a mix of documented and modern recipes. I can't find reference to lemon curd any earlier than 1800 but Leda loves it, so it made the menu. I didn't specifically document my shortbread recipe -I've had it for years and at this point I have no idea it's origin. But I've heard people say shortbread goes back as far as the 12th century, so it's not impossible that my recipe was HA. With limited time and a table to fill, I blush to admit that I did not research as fully as I might have. The scones, gingerbread and banana muffins were all modern recipes.
The brandied peach tartlets used a redaction of Scappi's Feast Day Cheese Tart crust. That crust has become my "go-to" recipe pretty much anytime I need a crust for something. The filling was peaches drained off when I bottled 2016's batch of peach brandy this past summer.
The conserve of orange was a redaction from Medieval Cookery. It was a lot of work, but the house smelled amazing while it was cooking and it was pretty darned tasty when it was done. This recipe is definitely a keeper.
The one big lesson from this table is not to plan such a heavily baked good table next time. I was baking for the better part of three days and towards the end the oven started throwing sensor error messages... probably because I had been working it so hard.
The other big project for Leda's Vigil was a new gown. She had asked that I process with her, but when I do Italian at all these days, I usually do working class. So I would definitely need a new gown suitable for court.
I have to admit the gown project daunted me. I had lost my mojo after the Modern Maker workshops this summer and with everything I had committed to for War of the Wings, this gown didn't get started at all until a week or so after I got back from War of the Wings. But the Sewing Gods smiled upon me and I got a 90% hand sewn gown completed in just under 3 weeks -mostly because I did not have to devote time sewing trim on.
While I love the mid 16th century, my personal aesthetic tends more towards the austere lines of Sofonisba Anguissola, so I settled on a painting by Antonio Giovanni Fasolo for my inspiration.
We were in San Francisco in August and I dragged Jay to the Legion of Honor Museum in hopes of getting greater detail on the cuff embroidery and partlet, but the painting was not on view. It apparently hadn't been on view in a very long while because one of the curators was sure the Museum didn't own it until he looked it up in their database.
I had picked up some cerise silk blend upholstery fabric at a Robert Allen Outlet sale this spring and had stalled on trying to document the pattern, but it would be close enough to HA for the gown.
I drafted the original pattern for the bodice in August using the Bara system and my notes from the Modern Maker workshop. The pad stitching (which I normally hate) went pretty quickly -possibly because I was under the gun at this point, possibly due to kitty support.
Someone on one of the many costuming boards I am on posted a trick for pattern matching that worked like a dream. Use a non-opaque material for the bodice front pattern piece so you can see the fabric through the pattern piece and move it as needed until it's in the best spot for the motif in the fabric.
Now that the elevation is done I kind of feel like a kid on the first day of Summer Vacation -wow... what do I want to do now?!? Step one: Clean the sewing room!
Charlie the cat says:
/c vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv
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Dalby, Andrew and Sally Gringer. The Classical Cookbook, Revised Edition. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2012.
There were actually two parts: a "Last Night as an Apprentice" party on Friday night and the actual Vigil Saturday morning/afternoon.
Friday night was a "Tavern Food" theme. I made two recipes I'd used from the Royal Luncheon at Red Tower: The Strong Garlic Cheese and the Olive Relish, using redactions from The Classical Cookbook.
The Garlic Cheese recipe is from the poem Moretum, commonly attributed to Virgil. (Dalby 105) although I have taken liberties with the recipe. The first time (for the Royal Lunch taste-test) was as redacted and with the full amount of garlic suggested.. While tasty, there was so much garlic that it was spicy. It also needs to be at room temperature to be malleable enough to eat.
I've made it twice since then and find that half the garlic is still garlicky enough for garlic lovers. I also find that using white wine in far higher quantities than called for makes it easier to blend (even in my Vitamix) and easier to spread. The recipe specifically says it should not be spreadable, but I'm cooking for people to eat and spreadable cheese is just better for people to eat off a buffet.
The olive relish (essentially tapenade) I made exactly to Dalby's redaction. It's a tasty, easy to prepare recipe that I can make in large quantities. The one thing I learned from this recipe is that fresh rue is called ruda and available at foodie supermarkets, like Buford Farmer's Market.
There was plenty of (store-bought) cuban bread and some pretty amazing (if I say so myself) pudding shots with rumchata and bourbon cream to round out the table. If you try the pudding shots, Godiva makes an instant chocolate pudding, which I highly recommend.
Sadly, I did not get a single photo of the Friday night party. But it was after dark, so I'm not sure how photos would have turned out anyway.
The actual Vigil on Saturday afternoon was an English "Cream Tea" theme.
Photo credit: Mistress Sofya Gianetta di Trieste
The menu was brandied peach tartlets, shortbread, lemon curd, conserve of oranges, scones (plain and current), gingerbread, banana muffins and assorted nuts and dates.
I've collected enough "hospitality table" dishes since Mistress Alessandra's elevation that the only thing I added were some cute little chalkboard signs that I used to label everything. I also had a master ingredients list in case of food allergies.
The food was a mix of documented and modern recipes. I can't find reference to lemon curd any earlier than 1800 but Leda loves it, so it made the menu. I didn't specifically document my shortbread recipe -I've had it for years and at this point I have no idea it's origin. But I've heard people say shortbread goes back as far as the 12th century, so it's not impossible that my recipe was HA. With limited time and a table to fill, I blush to admit that I did not research as fully as I might have. The scones, gingerbread and banana muffins were all modern recipes.
The brandied peach tartlets used a redaction of Scappi's Feast Day Cheese Tart crust. That crust has become my "go-to" recipe pretty much anytime I need a crust for something. The filling was peaches drained off when I bottled 2016's batch of peach brandy this past summer.
The conserve of orange was a redaction from Medieval Cookery. It was a lot of work, but the house smelled amazing while it was cooking and it was pretty darned tasty when it was done. This recipe is definitely a keeper.
The one big lesson from this table is not to plan such a heavily baked good table next time. I was baking for the better part of three days and towards the end the oven started throwing sensor error messages... probably because I had been working it so hard.
The other big project for Leda's Vigil was a new gown. She had asked that I process with her, but when I do Italian at all these days, I usually do working class. So I would definitely need a new gown suitable for court.
I have to admit the gown project daunted me. I had lost my mojo after the Modern Maker workshops this summer and with everything I had committed to for War of the Wings, this gown didn't get started at all until a week or so after I got back from War of the Wings. But the Sewing Gods smiled upon me and I got a 90% hand sewn gown completed in just under 3 weeks -mostly because I did not have to devote time sewing trim on.
While I love the mid 16th century, my personal aesthetic tends more towards the austere lines of Sofonisba Anguissola, so I settled on a painting by Antonio Giovanni Fasolo for my inspiration.
Portrait of a Family
c1558
Antonio Giovanni Fasolo
Legion of Honor Museum, San Francisco
We were in San Francisco in August and I dragged Jay to the Legion of Honor Museum in hopes of getting greater detail on the cuff embroidery and partlet, but the painting was not on view. It apparently hadn't been on view in a very long while because one of the curators was sure the Museum didn't own it until he looked it up in their database.
I had picked up some cerise silk blend upholstery fabric at a Robert Allen Outlet sale this spring and had stalled on trying to document the pattern, but it would be close enough to HA for the gown.
I drafted the original pattern for the bodice in August using the Bara system and my notes from the Modern Maker workshop. The pad stitching (which I normally hate) went pretty quickly -possibly because I was under the gun at this point, possibly due to kitty support.
Sam quality checking my pad stitching
Lafayette helping out
Someone on one of the many costuming boards I am on posted a trick for pattern matching that worked like a dream. Use a non-opaque material for the bodice front pattern piece so you can see the fabric through the pattern piece and move it as needed until it's in the best spot for the motif in the fabric.
Nicely centered pattern on the bodice. Go me!
Marking and hand sewing the pleats was kind of tedious but the boys were on the job, making sure I didn't slack off.
Laf supervising my work.
The Cat Union limits the number of hours a day a kitten can work,
so Sam took over for the evening shift.
All the tiny pleats!
The fact that the fabric was intended for upholstery, gave the skirt a lovely voluminousness. I had a blackand drawn work partlet that I'd made last year but never worn, since it was too nice for a working class impression. But it would be perfect with this gown -and had the added bonus of being already complete.
While the dress was hanging before I hemmed it, I got it in my head that I absolutely had to have a pair of cuffs, so I knocked out a very unsatisfactory pair of cuffs and played with liquid starch for the first time.
There is a reason they call it Corn STARCH. :)
I had intended to do a stiffened hem. but time ran out and I was lucky to get the hem marked and pressed up before we left for site. Lady Ellison Summerfield, bless her, offered to hem the dress while I was attending to the Vigil table and she hemmed all 6+ yards of skirt on Saturday afternoon. And with as stiff as the fabric is, I don't think I miss the stiffened hem a bit.
The Elevation itself was lovely, if a bit nerve wracking. Mid afternoon, Baroness Sibella, who was supposed to speak for the Populace said that she was too tired to keep her thoughts together and asked if I would speak instead. After the initial terror at the thought wore off I managed to get my thoughts together and managed to say something mostly articulate when the time came.
Leda's Procession
photo credit: Mistress Jocosa d'Auxerre
Me in The Dress, with Leda's Laurel, Master Jose and Mistress Katrai
photo credit: Lady Rhonwyn
Now that the elevation is done I kind of feel like a kid on the first day of Summer Vacation -wow... what do I want to do now?!? Step one: Clean the sewing room!
Charlie the cat says:
/c vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv
----------------------------------------------------
Dalby, Andrew and Sally Gringer. The Classical Cookbook, Revised Edition. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2012.
