Some feasts go as planned. And then there was this one. Though as far as I could tell the diners enjoyed the food, I’m forever going to refer to this as “The Duck Feast” – not because I served duck, but because the final result was absolutely the embodiment of the phrase “be the duck” – things may have been calm in the feast hall, but they were far more chaotic than I’d prefer in the kitchen.
First off, I’ll admit that I had a very difficult time with the menu planning for this feast – I had a very cool idea that ended up leading me down lots of research rabbit holes, but those various strands really didn’t want to coalesce into a coherent meal. Combine that with a couple of exceptionally busy months in my mundane job, and I was hitting the “panic” stage by the end of January before the February 22nd event. And that was before it snowed 3 days before the event…
The timeline:
Sunday, February 16th:
- Locked down final menu – again, this was supposed to be sooner but life happened. (Preliminary menu was done by late January, early February, but I was still dithering on a few items, and never did manage to publish the actual menu before the event).
Monday, February 17th:
- Finalized schedule spreadsheet, shopping list, ordered Amazon items for overnight delivery. (Cheapest way to get some of the spices, hazelnuts, rennet, dried cranberries, etc).
Tuesday, February 18th:
- Snow was forecast for February 19th, so the stores were quite busy when I was picking up cabbage and leeks for sauerkraut. Usually it’s only milk, eggs and bread that are hard to find, but in this case I had to go to two different stores for vegetables and even then I had to buy red cabbage instead of green for half the required quantity. I somewhat suspect this affected the final product; I think the red cabbage was less “juicy” than green, released less water, and thus the salt was not as evenly mixed throughout the fermentation bucket. Some people reported very salty kraut, some people loved it – I don’t know whether that was variance in personal taste or in actual product; the sample bite I took when I opened the bucket was as I expected.
Thursday, February 20th:
- Candying hazelnuts went well – candied nuts/spices have a great effort to reward ratio, and hold well for preparing ahead of time.
- Decided that the shortbread would be better if made on site – this turned out to be an error.
Friday, February 21st:
- My spreadsheet said that shopping should be done by 12pm to arrive on site by 2. I was in restaurant depot until 1.
- Shopping notes: not enough trout, had to buy mixed smoked fishes – probably shouldn’t have bought the whole fish as they were difficult to prepare, but they fit in the budget more reasonably than smoked salmon.
- Arrived on site at 3ish, had to find unloading crew. Now 2 hours behind schedule, and then…
- This is the first spot where things went off the rails: the site’s commercial mixer was out of commission – failed inspection, didn’t have a power cord, etc. The menu included multiple types of bread and pastry as well as homemade butter, all intended to be mixed in that mixer. Things got weird at that point.
- Scheduled Tasks vs Actual Results:
- Rye Bread: Dough made, but not kneaded as well as it should have been. Left for overnight rise in an effort to help develop gluten.
- Butter: Decided not to culture cream as I hadn’t decided what I was doing about making the butter.
- Pickled Onions: pushed to next day (didn’t require the mixer, but did require hands that ended up occupied with other tasks.)
- Poppyseed Vatrushki: dough made, onions caramelized, but not proofed or baked. Had to convert brioche dough recipe into an overnight version with mixed success.
- Turnip and Onion Pirozhki: made filling, made dough (another overnight conversion, but this one worked better), didn’t roll out/fill/bake.
- Chicken: not dry brined. Decided to skip it entirely, which didn’t seem to affect the final product.
- Ducks: only partially thawed. I kept them in cool running water for the afternoon but they were Rocks Of Poultry when returned to the fridge overnight.
- Cranberry Sauce: the one thing that went according to plan! Yay!
- Shortbread: Still not made.
- Skyr: Milk was heated late and thus cooled and cultured late – in fact, because I lost track of it, the cultures were added after it had cooled well past the temperature at which I was supposed to add them. However, when I came back the next morning, it was perfect, so all’s well that ends well.
- Oatcakes: Nope!
- Injuries to head cook:
- Cut left thumb badly enough that I needed to wear a glove for most tasks for the rest of the evening/next day.
8-11:30am Saturday, February 22nd:
- Obviously, things are well behind schedule and that didn’t improve for a while. Much of the morning was spent on the two types of pastries. Ducks continued to be behind schedule.
- One thing that went well was sharing the kitchen with Friday Tavern and Saturday breakfast – I hadn’t planned to do much on the stove during either of these events and there was sufficient prep space that we basically weren’t in each others’ way.
- Scheduled Tasks vs Actual Results (including items pushed from Fri):
- Bread: Baked! (Might have taken it out a bit early but the outside looked done and the temp read 208.)
- Pastries: Were most assembled but not quite yet baked, though they were finished by 2pm or so.
- Duck: had a pair of HEROES dismember them (duck boobs and butt nuggets!), broth wasn’t put on until 1pm or so though.
- Beets: Roasted, peeling and chopping might have taken a bit more time than allotted but they were dressed and ready by 1pm.
- Oatcakes: Out of the oven by noon. (starting to catch up!)
- Injuries to head cook:
- The first burn or two…all minor.
12-3:00pm Saturday, February 22nd:
- This was where we started catching back up to the schedule.
- Pastries: Done!
- Pickled Onions: Done! (Except…)
- Duck legs: Seared and in the oven
- Pork Shoulder:Somehow, don’t ask me how, I forgot that pork shoulder from restaurant depot, unlike that from the grocery store, doesn’t come boneless. Therefore, the filet-and-roll portion of this took 2x as long as it should have… ended up only having about 2.5 hours to cook the pork so it was roasted hot (450°).
- Butter: Was a bit of a nightmare, used vitamix blender to make which was Not Ideal and took a few hours of one kitchen helper’s time. Didn’t culture it at all, so it was just whipped butter with salt.
- Injuries to head cook:
- At least a couple more burns, minor.
3-6:30pm Saturday, February 22nd:
- Everything that was supposed to happen during this phase did, except the lentils were boiled a bit late (still done by 6) and the barley/mushrooms didn’t go into the oven until perhaps 6.
- Smoked Fish Plate: Completely forgot the existence of the pickled onions. Also should have deboned the whole fish more thoroughly.
- Pork Shoulder:Had to remove and “disassemble” a bit in order to get the center cooked.
- Chicken: I really needed more oven space, which I didn’t have because the pork was still cooking which had gone in late for multiple reasons. I would have liked this to be cooked in one layer but that simply wasn’t a possibility. Was more braised than caramelized, though I did manage to get at least a little browning on each drumstick, if not all the way around, by shuffling them around in the pan often.
- Barley: One bag of barley got completely lost, so we served half of what I meant to.
- Shortbread: Forgotten and burned. Still tried to cut it and gave up as “not good eats”.
- To some degree, I lost track of time at this point, other than “are people ready to eat yet”. Surprisingly for Ymir, however, the diners were ready by 6:45, only 15 min after schedule.
- Injuries to head cook:
- The worst of the burns – a miscommunication had one of the two pans of pork headed for the floor; I ignored the part where it was hitting my arm in order to keep the descent controlled so it was “set the pan on the floor and pick it back up” rather than “dump the pan’s contents”. This was probably a 2 square inch blistered area – d’oh!
During Feast, Saturday, February 22nd:
- I completely quit looking at the clock at this point. The first course went out on time, second course almost did, I’m told the 3rd was late.
- Rye Bread: was a bit soggy on the bottom, not sure if that was from leaving it on the pans or just the lack of kneading/gluten.
- Pastries: Went out warm, made too many.
- Pork: Was a little bit extra crispy but people loved it (didn’t want to give back the leftovers.)
- Chicken: Got compliments.
- Eggs: Went out hot (to most tables). That was a TRIUMPH.
- Beets: Perfect.
- Lentils: Good, need to be more careful about plating as a few got under the chicken.
- Duck: Was hot when I started plating, not so much by the time some of the plates got to tables.
- Barley: Got messed up by the convection oven – dry, especially the vegetarian one that the fan blew off the cover.
- Hazelnuts: Went out with the wrong course, but it worked better that way.
- Pears: Not all of them got cut/poached, for reasons I don’t understand. Had to do some emergency replating. What there was was good though – we were drinking the syrup after.
- Oatcakes: A little crispy/dry, not bad.
After feast:
- There has still GOT to be a better way to manage the dish sorting between baronial gear, site gear, and personal gear. Not sure what it is though.
- Also, that was the worst I’ve hurt after a feast in years – I really must work on my fitness, this is an endurance sport.
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