Vettoria di Giovanni da Verona's blog

Singing today with Katherina, William de Cameron, Eleanor, and Caterine.

Tonight Eleanor and Katherine of Glastonbury came over and patterned stockings - with duct tape! There was also quite a lot of giggling.

Eleanor led the process, having patterned using this method before. First she showed us what to do by using Katherine's leg as a model, and enlisting my help for marking in the foot patterning, then once Katherine was done, she took a turn at duct taping/patterning Eleanor's leg.

Today we had Lady Ginevra Isabella da Serafino Visconti visiting from Southron Gaard. She is up visiting for just over a week, and came along to mingle with the fine company that regularly attend. Catalina took the time to show her how she works stem stitch, and they were able to chat about embroidery techniques for some time.

This afternoon's A&S happened at Birkdale Community House, which is also used regularly for dance practices. It was ungarbed, with a potluck dinner. Everyone enjoyed a pleasant afternoon, with a great variety of activities taking place.

Please find below the menu for the Bloth Feast. It is a late 16th century Italian style feast served in three courses. I am using the majority of the available Italian cooking sources, although I rely primarily on Scappi and Messisbugo; I primarily use the French Nostradamus for my candy recipes.

For those with dietary requirements:

- Any meat dishes have an ^ next to them - there are four in total

By Lady Caterine de Vantier

This year I was privileged to be able to cook the feast at Canterbury Faire, with the aid of an awesome team from Ildhafn and many, many kitchen hands and dishwashers, mostly from the Crescent Isles, with a smattering of people from over the ditch. I said it in person, but I'll say it again - thank you to all those that helped, I really appreciated what each and every one of you did as this feast would not have worked as well or gone as smoothly without your help.

Read on for the full discussion of the background, food, service and other notes.

Caterine de Vantier is cooking the feast at Canterbury Faire in February,  and has enrolled several other members of the Barony of Ildhafn to help her; William de Cameron and Katherina Weyssin as hall stewards, Anna de Wilde to manage plating and presentation, Ludwig von Regensburg as kitchen help. This is where we're keeping our notes - all the odds and ends that several of us need to be able to consult. 

People:

[who, what, where]

By Lady Caterine de Vantier

Again, this is testing that I did in preparation for the feast at Canterbury Faire. I wanted to offer some sort of fruit-based pie as part of the final credenza course, and Messisbugo's date torte recipe first caught my eye, and then his other one did. I decided to test them both, since I had the luxury of all the ingredients and a group of people willing to taste test on hand.

By Lady Caterine de Vantier

Okay, so I was more optimistic and hopeful about the possibility of serving asparagus as part of the Canterbury Faire feast than realistic about the probability of getting decent fresh asparagus at the start of February. Still, with a number of avid asparagus eaters amongst my testers, I had plenty of people more than happy to indulge my desire to try out three different means of serving asparagus.

We wound up with eight people at William & Catalina's this afternoon, with a bustle of activity as what was originally "Sewing Sunday" becomes more and more a general group day.

A number of sewing projects were being worked on this afternoon: I put gathering threads in the neckline of a new chemise, while Anna tacked the lining of the skirt of a new dress in, then cut out some sleeves, and Katherina virtuously made some fingerloop braid cords to go on her new shirts.