Squee!

In case you missed it, SCAdians who make hurdy-gurdies were on Oregon Art Beat last week. And yes, I did receive a "YOU MUST TURN ON THE TV NOW!" phone call the night of, and was asked about it at work the next day. Ha!

It's pretty neat. Now I want a hurdy-gurdy! Too bad I've never successfully played any musical instrument :(

Hard Tack, aka Ship's Biscuit

Twice-baked, unleavened, rock hard biscuits have a long and noble tradition as rations for sailors, and in period were called "ship's biscuit." When Richard the Lionheart set out from England for the Crusades in 1189, he is reputed to have done so with his ships well provisioned with "biskit of muslin." Muslin, or maslin, was a mix of wheat and rye, referring both to how these grains were grown in the field and to the bread made from this mix. Possibly by the 16th century, and definitely by the 17th century, wheat flour seems to have become the standard for ship-board rations in England.

In the US, we know ship's biscuit as hard tack, as this is what it was called during the Civil War. I haven't found reference specifically to hard biscuits being used as soldier's rations in the medieval period, but it seems very likely. (Roman soldiers did eat a lot of unleavened bread, but I don't know if it was similar to hard tack.) The appeal of ship's biscuit is that it keeps forever, as long as you keep it dry, and it requires no preparation to make it edible (although soaking it in soup or even water does make it easier to eat).

I've posted about my adventures in hard tack here before, but since we talked about it on The Gobbet I thought the subject was worth revisiting.

My recipe for a small batch of hard tack is:
1 cup whole grain flour
1 tsp salt
about half a cup of water, give or take

Blend the flour and salt together and add enough water, while kneading, to make a dough. Roll out 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick, cut into squares or circles, and prick holes with a fork (actually my tool of choice is a chopstick, the big holes seem to work better), being sure go all the way through the dough. Bake at 350 degrees for half an hour, flipping once midway through. Let them cool overnight. The next day, bake at 300 degrees for half an hour, or until the biscuits are completely hard and dry.

I happen to think this is kind of tasty -- it's very salty and crunchy, I call them mega-crackers. Oh sure, it's ridiculously hard to chew, but that builds character, right?

Episode 35 of The Lion's Road

It is now up, and called Hard Tack. The Gobbet is at the beginning of the episode (I also make a surprise appearance later).

I'm listening to myself and I am noticing two things here:
1. I giggle a lot
2. HOLY GOD I'M A NERD

For future reference, we will be broadcasting live video every Tuesday night at 7pm Pacific time (I'm on every other week). Tune in at lionsroad.org, and do remember to subscribe to the show either through RSS or iTunes.

There's also some possibility of some future projects involving video.

Next post here will be recipes for the foods on the show, candied peels and ship's biscuit.

The hat brute squad

The hat brute squad
Originally uploaded by laurelfactorial

Cover your head.

OR ELSE.

12th NITE WOOOOOOOOOOOOO

12th NITE WOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Originally uploaded by laurelfactorial

This pretty much sums up the weekend.

Making it official

For anyone who has not yet heard, I'm going out for my Kingdom's Arts and Sciences Championship.

Woo?

12th night! wooo!

Better Half and I had an amazing time at 12th night. Good fun with good folks, what could be better? We shared a room with another couple (thank you!), part of a block of rooms with our peeps; the rooms were nicely sized for socializing! I learned to play knucklebones, spread the tarrochi love, was introduced to some new potent potables, got to field test the new hat, and laughed so hard I thought I might puke. I also got to see two much-missed friends lately of the West, and was excited to learn about certain developments in their life! It was just an amazing and perfect weekend. Gush gush gush!

I didn't make myself a new outfit, but I did manage to finish a new (and lovely!) teal linen dress for Anne. It looked surprisingly good with her orange apron dress (which desperately needs a miracle fix as I never finished the seams because I was young and foolish when I made it). And yes, I finished it Friday night in the hotel room!

I barely took any pictures, but what few I did will probably end up on my Flickr in the next week or so. There are also a couple of hillarious pictures of me that other people took that I may also post on my Flickr (once I get permission) since they are too funny to not share. The hat mafia is coming for you!

Again, I just had so much fun. As I declared during the weekend and later explained to a coworker, it's basically like spring break but in garb.

Hair Bag

Last week I finished version 1.1 of the snood-looking hat from the Maciejowski Bible, (sorta) based on the reconstruction of St Birgitta's cap in Medieval Textiles volume 4. I didn't make an exact reconstruction, just followed the basic idea. I need to get some pictures of it, and when I do I'll post them. But here are my observations so far:

• It doesn't look exactly like the pictures, but I'm not totally positive that it's the hat's fault. I have a lot of hair, and there's no way for me to get the hat to stay on without making the front come down over my forehead (in the Maciejowski this hat is shown slightly back from the hairline). I also think I could have followed the original more closely if I had less hair. Really, I think that the type of women likely to be wearing a hat like this, ie working women and peasants, would not have had hair as long and thick and curly as I do.
• It does exactly what I want it to do. It holds my hair up and keeps it up, and I could easily see myself doing something like cooking over the fire or some other task all day without problems, which I have never been able to say about a hat or even leaving my hair braided but down. I am really, really happy.
• I am told it's cute.

At some point I may try some of the other proposed versions of the "Mac Hat" as I like to call it, but for now I'm pretty tickled with my new hat. Oh, and it's white linen, completely hand sewn with linen thread. It was a little time consuming, but small enough to be portable (I have been known to sew on public transporation!)

Not SCA, but medieval

Birthday present for Dad
Originally uploaded by laurelfactorial

For my dad's birthday, I made him this scroll. The text is a 7th century Irish poem, the hand is artificial uncial. The historiated initial is an amalgamation of several elements from a page of one manuscript, the name of which eludes me at the moment. The knotwork border is your basic knotwork border (as in, I didn't copy it from one particular period source).

Click on the image to be transported to my Flickr page, where I strongly recommend viewing the larger sizes of this picture (which was taken with my camera instead of scanned, our scanner is too wee for things like this) to see the details. Oh so many white dots on those knots!

I'm still not totally satisfied with my calligraphy, but I am actually really proud of my painting skills. I like the initial, especially.