Cryptic Post 2

.......The answer to our commonest question!

2 For The Price Of 1

Back from a trip away and raring to go when the Easter event starts next week.

First of all an apology re my post on 11th February! In this I mentioned the very pleasant evening we had with our friends- food, drink etc. etc. but neglected to post any real information about our friends.......in order to redress that, here is a link to their website The Guild of St George

Secondly, the menus for Easter. Hopefully I've cracked it and they appear here (if somewhat larger than the column can cope with), enjoy



Think of that as a sneak preview as I'm pretty sure that apart from our Clerk, Robert, none of the rest of the team will be looking at this- boy are they going to get a shock next Thursday...tee hee hee!?!

Cryptic Post!

It's coming soon............and I don't mean Easter.









Hush Hush, Mum's the word! and all that






All will be revealed soon!

Easter Is Coming And The Goose Is Getting Fat....

..or something like that!

Not long to go now until the Easter cookery event is upon us.
The menus have been planned and the ingredients ordered it's now a matter of waiting to see if it all turns up on time or not.

Big Changes For Easter

So, 10 days of cookery are mostly planned and the shopping lists being drawn up when I get the dumb idea:
'wouldn't it be great to cook 2 meals each day? You know, at the proper Tudor court times...10.00am and 4.00 pm'

Unfortunately, everyone else thought it was a good idea too?!? So now we just have to deliver.

2 meals a day, that's no problem I hear you cry....well no it isn't, except for the fact that the palace doesn't open until 10.00 am and we only start work at 9.00!! Oh well, I'm sure it'll all work out fine and if not then the rest of the guys will undoubtedly let me know what a stupid idea it was.

At the moment, posting the menu's is problematic due to the format that they are currently in - scribbled in pencil on a sheet of paper, but as soon as I get them typed up I'll post them for all to see and to whet your appetites.

There probably won't be much activity from me for this coming week as I'm away on another job for the next 4 days or so, but there will be an update next weekend ready for Easter's cookery.

No Pressure, But You Might Like To Vote Here!

UKTV History are currently running a campaign to find Britain's best Historic site.

There's plenty of sites to choose from and it appears that you can add sites that aren't already on the list.

Comments

Just to remind/let you know that if you post any comments that needs a reply, I'll do so in the same post- unless it's such a doozy that a new post is needed.

So Helen, check out your comment

Back To School....

First off, following up from the images posted last time, I've added 4 more of the new stuff on display in the kitchens.

Yesterday saw me visiting Hampton School near Hampton Court for school dinner!?
To clarify, this year is the 450th anniversary of their founders day and they wanted to have a Tudor meal as part of the celebration. they contacted Hampton Court around 6 months or so ago and I've been working with them on this project since then.

In reality all I did was to supply a few recipes, albeit ones that i thought would be suitable for them, i.e. not too complicated for what would be essentially a one off meal- when we cook we have the luxury of being able to stuff it up....big time...we can always try again next time, the school couldn't. I also had to take into account the numbers that they would be feeding.....over 1000 portions of each dish!!!!!

We had a few meetings to talk it all through, they put in a ton of work (much more than I had to anyway) and they also decided to make it much bigger than they'd originally planned. Bryan, the chap who suggested the event thought it would be great to make much more of a 'day' of it, so spread the work amongst the school departments. Not only did they all pull together for the day, they included all sort of Tudor themed work into their lessons, from the art department who had the kids paint Tudor portraits and 'tapestries' to decorate the hall, through the IT department who came to the Palace at Christmas where they videoed us cooking and projected it onto the walls of the hall to add ambiance. The music department had the kids learning Tudor music which was played throughout dinner and the English department had the upper 6th translating the original texts I sent them.

All in all I was most impressed. The school had 'gone for it' with gusto and were rewarded with a cracking meal to boot. Deborah, the lady in charge of the catering had done wonders and produced a cracking meal- Beef Stew, Pork Stew, Cabochis, Tarte owte of Lente, Pears in Syryp and Oyle soppes!! It tasted great and most surprising the kids seemed to enjoy it too- although I'll know more in the near future when we have a 'wash up' meeting.
As far as i can tell, this was probably the first time for a long time that anyone had tried a Tudor meal of the complexity that this was for such a large number of people.

Now that that's done, I can get back to the menu planning for Easter, all MUST be done and dusted by next Wednesday.....so if you'll excuse me, back to work!

Ok, So I've Been A Bad Boy......

..and not written anything for over a week. I've been taken to task in an email by my 'number 1 fan' (my mother!) about not writing up last weeks stuff. Well to be honest, it was a long and tiring week and writing in the evening was the last thing on my mind... I know, I know, I should finish what I start, but last week I really couldn't be bothered.

Anyway, here I am now so all is better eh?

Last week was a busy week. Originally set aside for running repairs to the static display in the kitchen, you'd be surprised at the damage that occurred over the school half term holiday. So we were ready with glue in hand, to stick it all back down again. We were also adding new stuff to the display, more sacks, more plastic meat and as soon as the health and safety man approves, a couple of new wheelbarrows- I've added a few (5) photos to the photostream so you get a rough idea, you'll also get to see the wheelbarrow before anyone else so a sort of sneak preview.

On Tuesday there was the official opening of the new Clore Education Centre at Hampton Court. This newly revamped and added to area of the Palace will really add to and improve the education departments provision for school and adult education. As part of the education department, the 5 core members of the team were invited to the opening, best bib and tucker as guest of honour was HRH The Price of Wales.....which was nice. We didn't get to talk to him, but we did get to eat some very nice canapes !

Wednesday saw me in a meeting for most of the morning, talking to our manager about the forthcoming years cookery events. We've got some great ideas in the pipeline, some stuff you may have seen before if you've visited and a lot that is brand new.....more of that at a later date though.
The rest of the week saw us armed with a large tin of solvent based glue, sticking down plastic meat, pies and fish; let's just hope that they stay stuck for a little longer this time.

Time marches ever on and the Easter cookery looms large, it opens on the 6th April for 10 days, that's just over 3 weeks away!!!! This week I have to sort out the menu, work out the shopping list and then get the food orders in by the middle of next week so that we've got the ingredients to cook with. That means tomorrow will be spent taking another inventory of the stuff we have in stock so that I can start the menu planning on Wednesday.

As soon as the menu is sorted, I'll post it up for you all to see what lies in store for the cookery week. You should also (fingers crossed) see the number of posts start to increase as we prepare for the Easter week.