T i m e L a p s e

First of the videos that I took of the Hall being set up/taken down and the King dining has now been edited, you can find it over at the Gallery...just click on the thumbnail to get there:

Sorry for the appalling picture quality, but it was a very gloomy day and the lighting was awful, that and the fact that I'm using a small pocket camera not a video camera all combine to give the effect of Henry dining on the event horizon of a black hole!!
That aside, you should get an idea of what went on...and "get" the "Lenin's tomb" reference. The 31st was really the day that everything came good I suppose. Teething problems with the layout of the Hall were dealt with, visitor management was spot on...great work by the team from Past Pleasures who man the "upstairs" parts of the Palace, absolutely first rate stuff, with just the right levels of solemnity and levity I felt....the State Apartment Warders and Conservation and Collection Care teams were also running like a dream too (not that they weren't before, but by the 31st everyone, including me, had relaxed somewhat and the atmosphere in the Hall seemed to reflect that).

Still more videos to edit, but that may have to wait whilst family stuff takes over for the next few days (hmmm, decorating, can't wait....not!), but when you do see them you'll see that very little changes....we'd got it just about right. That is not to say that it was perfect by any means....but as I've maintained all along if you were to have asked me, this was the beginning on a new road to the way that food and meals within the context of Henry VIII's Court are interpreted. There is still a L O N G way to go to get anything like an accurate presentation, but these tentative baby steps are a start......and much much closer to history than what was done in the past.

Hopefully, the powers that be at work were equally happy with the event as I was, we'll just have to wait for the debrief meeting to find out, but all in all I think we can safely say B-, could do better!

What would I change?........I think that can wait for another post, possibly with the last video, to give me time to think.

TTFN

Xmas Images

Just put a new album into the Gallery with some of the images that I took at Christmas....only 25 I'm afraid, most of what I shot was for internal analysis later on and not, I'm sorry to say, for public consumption....that and they're mostly blurred or out of focus due to the gloomy lighting on the day or my general ineptitude!! For images of the event I can recommend those taken and kindly shared by Terry L over at the forum, much more comprehensive than this small offering....but I digress.

As ever, Dave features large with this image



quite simply, the man gives great photo!!! Point the camera at him and.....assuming you use a fast enough shutter to freeze the movement or he's run out of steam, you'll always get a good image....damn him!!

There are a small handful of the table being set for the dining, not enough as although I was on photo duty, I was also needed to set the table up as well, so images took an unfortunate back seat (though a useful lesson for the future...don't try to do 2 things at once, something will give)

You can also see the "revised" public queuing/route system in operation too...



nattily referred to as the Lenin's Tomb effect by a number of staff...still it worked and that's the main thing.

I'm still working through editing the time lapse footage that I shot of the Hall being set up and the dining being viewed...it's just taking longer than I thought due to the need to protect the innocent/guilty (delete as you feel applicable).

Will update you with the video when it's done, but for now, here is the link to the Gallery >>>>> LINK

Navigate through cookery events > Henry VIII to find the Xmas 2010 album.

TTFN

Fire From The Skies!

Just a quickie as it's rather late!

Was walking back to the digs through Base Court and found one of those hippy sky lantern thingies on the floor. If you use them, please think of the possibilities of where they may land, fortunately the heat source had burnt out, but what if it had landed alight on the Palace?

Hippy types....thing before you light those decorative floatong lanterns....where might they land? Will it be safe?

Here ends the fire safety message....tipsy though it may be ;o)

Happy New Year!!!

Wishing you all the best for 2011.

With luck in the coming year I can shift this blue funk and keep you better informed than of late .

All the best and remember to drink responsibly tonight people....I may even allow myself a little drinky to celebrate the success of this event. An update will be forthcoming after the dust has settled, possibly a short one tomorrow too, but for now obscenely loud music calls to drown it all out!

TTFN and all the best

Why So Silent?

You'll notice a dearth of detail about the Xmas event for the moment for the simple reason, it's not sorted yet and I prefer to get it right this time before giving you the nitty gritty....silly really, but that's how it is!

From our point of view in the kitchens, all is tickety boo, just the meal part to get 'right', but considering it's the first time this has been done like this for several hundred years I suppose it's not going too badly!! Fingers crossed by the end of tomorrow we'll all be sorted and I can give you the SP from our end....for now though, pop to the forum for a 'punters view' and look at the pictures and so on posted by Terry L.

I can certainly say though that it is mentally draining trying to get this event 'right'...sit down for 5 minutes and I drop off to sleep....so draining in fact that I'll even let Terry's comment about me not working pass....I don't just 'supervise' you know....there is other stuff involved too!! ;o)

TTFN

Happy Christmas!

Happy Christmas everyone.

Fingers crossed for a successful event over the next week and an equally successful 2011.

All the best.

TC

The Die Is Cast!

Right, that's it, I've done all I'm going to towards the Christmas event...it's now time for the holiday, short and sweet though it is....to be honest though I really can't recall Christmas' that have been longer than Christmas and Boxing Day so wouldn't know what to do if we had the time anyway.

All the ingredients that needed to have arrived have arrived.....or, after a short delay this morning, were collected and have all now been put away in the cupboards and fridges. Some things have been portioned up, like apples for the table, to save them being forgotten and lists of daily needs are sitting on the desk ready to get started.....there's probably loads more I could have done to prepare, but in the end, enough was enough and it'll all just have to come together on the day....which I have no doubt it will...still the nagging worry about the event though, given the amount of work put in so far, but isn't that always the way with something new?

That's probably all from me until we get to work on Boxing Day, though so saying I expect I'll pop up a seasonal salutation to you all 'on the day', both here and Twitter.

Don't forget, any questions then fire away, but do try to use the forum first and foremost as that's likely to get results/answers quicker than using the comments system here.

TTFN

On Tonights Menu We Have......

Finally it's finger out time and the promised update on what we'll actually be cooking over the Christmas event!
Now that all the plans are finally signed off and in place I have to say it's all looking rather good....I know I shouldn't count proverbial chickens and that, but the dress rehearsal for the 'upstairs' component looked really good and hopefully it'll all gel together to give a really good visit. Yes there are still a few niggles, but they're all behind the scenes things like the delivery dates of ingredients and the like....nothing major, but enough to keep us on our toes and add extra work that needn't really be there, still if that's all that goes wrong then I shouldn't complain.

So, the menu then. I should first explain that the menu I planned has had to take into account a number of added factors that we normally wouldn't have to deal with. It's not like it's a doddle at the best of times as it isn't a case of just throwing dishes together willy nilly...availability of ingredients, equipment and staffing all have to be considered as well as possible cost versus the 'return' of learning outcome/interest for the visitor....add to that the complete change of taking the food into the Great Hall, a conservation sensitive area containing priceless items from the Royal Collection and all the rules and criteria that go with that...which precludes the use of very liquid dishes or anything 'staining' like red wine or berries as well as the necessary rules about how food should be transported to and carried through the Hall...all of which meant that 'simple' was the way to go.
So as I said in the original post about the event, given all the factors to take into account, we shall be cooking a menu that ostensibly sticks quite closely to one of the two courses listed for the Kings meals in the diet lists contained within the regulations for the Royal Household set down at Eltham in 1526. Obviously, in order to cook and talk to the visitors, we aren't able to prepare the full menu (that and the fact that we don't have a fully staffed kitchen!) so I cherry picked dishes that fit all the criteria and will be interesting to cook as well, hopefully, as interesting to watch.

We'll be cooking the following menu on each of the 7 days, with only the potage of flesh varying in order to give us a little variety:

Menu.

Cheat and Manchet breads

Beer

Wine

A potage of flesh

Lamb stewed & chynes of mutton

Gigot of mutton stopped with cloves

Roast capon

Roast pheasant

Roast beef

Dowcets

Pippins

The Potage of Flesh will be:

Beef y-stywyd

Fylets en galentine 

To stew steaks of mutton 

Coleys 

Lange wortys de chare 

Stew after the guise of beyond the sea 

Autre veal en buknade

From our point of view, cooking a large and varied number of roast meats (all of which can be served pretty 'dry' to reduce the risk of spillage) will be a challenge...getting them all ready at the same time is the aim rather than cook one, then the next and not worry too much about it going cold as we would have done in the past....well, it was only us eating it, this time, with a 'client' things are different. As I've mentioned before this is the first step on a new ladder, so perhaps in the future the balance of dish types may change....who knows.

I intend to put the recipes that we'll be using for the potage's of flesh up on the forum, in the recipe area, so that you can see what we'll be cooking and ask any questions that you'd like about them there...it's also an easy place for people to find them if they ask when we're actually cooking so that they can have a go themselves.

There's probably more to add, but I can't think what at this time, I'll post 'it' if and when I work out what 'it' is!

TTFN

Lock In!

Phew, another good day at the coal face, if somewhat cold...especially after the sun vanished at about 1.00 when the temperature inside dropped like a stone. Still, all warmed up now, thanks to a gift of a bottle of Woods 100 rum and a marathon Clint Eastwood DVD session....there's been a rather large function at the Palace tonight and the options were stay in all night or go out and stay out until midnight, so we plumped for the former and a pleasant evening it was too.

But what about the day? Well, Terry has it fairly well covered over at the forum (in the Cookery at HCP board)...much better than I can deal with using the tiny keys on the phone here. No we didn't do a vast amount, but we did more than enough to please the visiting brave souls that we had and keep ourselves busy, as well as some testing for Christmas and leaving enough spare time to warm up now and again.
Those that couldn't make it in to work due to the poor weather were missed, but rather they were missed than take risks with travel given the state of some parts of the country.

If you've read the forum post about the day, the eagle eyed will have noticed mention of a deer...more on that when I've got a proper keyboard....but it certainly proved fascinating for the visitors.
Tomorrow, much more roasting as a precursor/test for Christmas...2 chickens, a mutton leg and a beef rib joint, all to be ready at the same time more or less. A few bonus sausages to use up to clear space in the freezer....and give us a warming snack (not sure what flavour they are, but I'm sure that Mr P will have made them nice when he made them.....whenever that was!)...so we've storage space for Xmas, possible coleys for me to try aalong with some more deer butchery for Robin to finish up.

More news and details after the weekend. Keep warm!

TTFN

Still Not Funny?

Spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening trying to work out what we will do over the weekend, but to be honest, until we know how many are in the kitchen and what we'll have to work with...snow may well scupper the deliveries, on the other hand it might not...there's actually little point in planning anything.
I've got a few ideas of what we can do so all I can do is take the weekend one proverbial step at a time.

Off to bed now and will keep you all updated as the weekend progresses....don't forget that the main page at www.tudorcook.co.uk has the latest posts from here, the forum and Twitter too so always a useful first port of call for those who don't use the RSS feed facility here.

An update about Christmas early next week now, once we've had the chance to mull some details over between us this weekend....and I promise I'll give you the menu then too.

TTFN