Joust A Minute!

Well the next weekend of cookery looms large and I did say that I'd let you know what we were planning to be doing didn't I?

Well first of all we'll have Robin back with us after his weekend off last time, so at least there will be someone in the kitchen who is competent at making pastry. Robert will be joining him and Marc H at the stoves for this event so that he can have a go at some of the recipes he spends his time in writing down and reading about....a new(ish) pair of eyes and hands could make all the difference to some of the interpretation....you never know what actually having a go at something you spend all your time reading will bring out do you?
I on the other hand will be carrying the camera this time, recording what goes on...specific stages of the recipes for later scrutiny as well as generic shots of working...if I can find any work being done to record that is! This should mean that I will be able to Tweet you updates as we work because I will be able to carry my phone in the kitchen (on silent of course) where I get a fairly good signal....it'll make a change from having to balance on chairs in upstairs offices to send you all updates during the event. I'm guessing that there will be more poor quality phone camera pictures than huge blocks of text....well up to 140 characters at least, but who knows...at least they'll give you some idea of what's going on to be able to make a little more sense of my blog ramblings than usual....but who knows what will transpire technologically wise....could all run out of battery power...Note to self: charge all batteries!!

Carter & Pick have a mind to look at other peoples interpretations of recipes and compare them to our own versions, cooking both examples and discussing as they go with the public...as well as all the usual sort of thing that they do like setting the scene for visitors about what they will see in the rest of the kitchen and making them (the public) feel at ease with asking us all questions.

Dave will be shoved outside into Master Carpenters Court to get people playing with our own mini jousting knights game

where you can try your hand at jousting, all be it on a small scale...but based on period toys.
If you do visit you can also have a go a spotting Jorge as he's been seconded out of the kitchen to help with the joust that's running in the East Front gardens. For extremely complicated reasons (involving someone who has no real interest in history) this is NOT a Tudor joust but is a joust from the 1470's....please don't ask me why, just come along and enjoy the spectacle. Knowing the guys that are running this....they ran the Tudor joust last year and the extremely successful joust at the Tower of London, I can guarantee that it will look absolutely superb and it will be one of the few opportunities to see a joust run under proper conditions...as opposed to the red knight vs black knight Hollywood style joust you tend to get a lot of.

Of course, the June event is the weekend after and that should be pretty much the same sort of thing...just no big jousting (Dave will still be out there with the mini knights though). We will be a little more limited with what we can cook on the June event as due to the set-up for the music festival we don't have access to the ovens or washing up facilities large enough to cope with the spit and drip tray...so no baking or roasting that weekend....still plenty to keep us busy though.

That's pretty much it I suppose...feel free to ask questions via the comments here or Twitter, especially as we go through the weekend, it would be nice to have your input.

So until the weekend....TTFN