You Can Take Your Stinking Meat And.....

use it!!

Seems that the guys had some problems in storing the meat over the last weekend. As I mentioned before, thanks to the set-up for the Music Festival we don't get to use the modern kitchen for the June weekend and so they had no access to the large catering fridges for storing ingredients and in spite of their best efforts they weren't able to keep the meat in "tip top" condition for Friday.

To be frank and to quote Marc H it apparently "stank like an abattoir" before it went on the spit and when it came off...so it was duly taken into our office, double bagged then stuck in the bin.
Now it can be argued that throwing it away was a waste of the meat and the money it cost, however the powers that be don't necessarily see it that way as while it was on the spit it "did the job" and allowed people to have a go at turning it round, take pictures and see what roasting is actually all about..eating it afterwards would just have been a bonus really.

So why tell you all of this...well, the next event in July sees us in the same boat as the June weekend as thanks to a function on the Saturday we will once again have no access to the fridges.
What will we do? Well, having considered the possible options....not roast at all, not roast on Sunday...the message from above is "carry on as usual, roast on both days". The only difference being to try and make the most out of things if the meat turns out not to be in the best of states on Sunday.

How will we do this? Simple really, use it to discuss storage in the Sixteenth Century Kitchens compared to storage today; after all the Tudors managed without access to electric refrigeration didn't they?! Worse case scenario and we end up with a stink laden piece of beef when we come to look at it on Sunday morning...roast it anyway then show that it isn't possible to disguise the smell let alone taste simply by using spices (yes that age old chestnut!)..at least until we can't stand the smell ;o)..take some pictures of public reaction, possibly some vox pop comments to be taken, that sort of stuff.

Now that's kind of sorted it's now time to get on with the nitty gritty of the rest of the menu plan for July and get that submitted before I pop off to Wakefield on Friday.

TTFN

You Aint Seen Me....Right!

Hard to believe, but it is indeed my weekend off the rota and hence away from the kitchens whilst the rest of the guys struggle with the June event.
It's always a tricky weekend because the Music Festival set up means we don't have access to the modern kitchen upstairs...so no baking but more crucially, no fridges!! I did my best to plan a menu that would fit this lack of storage as best it could, but if Marc H's latest tweet is anything to go on, the weather has taken its toll on the beef...still, from a personal standpoint, it isn't affecting my chicken sandwich as I sit here typing this ;op

I've re-tweeted Marc's various tweets of interest to the twitter feed, and you can always pop to the forum to see Terry Love's pictures from the Saturday... CLICK ME

I think I'm enjoying being completely dispensable and having them get on with things without me...after all there's no I in team....though I do have to say that the reports I'm getting do indicate that if nothing else I'm being missed as a target for grumbling at/about, so it's nice to know I am good for something.

June is shaping up to be a chaotic month, off to Wakefield to Clarke Hall for the food day and my sessions on chocolate next weekend, plans for July and August to sort out and the presentation for the International Medieval Congress to get sorted....and a new computer to source to enable me to do it all properly...as well as continuing the research project and get to a position where I can start writing stuff up in a meaningful fashion....no pressure then!

Details for what they did this weekend can be found over at the forum via the link above (cheers Terry) and I expect this will be added to after today finishes...you can also follow progress via the Twitter feed, but for now...time for the rest of my weekend off!!

TTFN