A feast fit for a king

[scarlettina]

After weeks of planning, a group of us converged on ebourne's home and, as previously discussed, recreated King Midas' funerary feast. Elizabeth and Jeffrey L. invited 10 friends to share in this culinary adventure, and some of us tried our hands at making the food for the event (myself included, again, as previously mentioned). Some of the folks at the event were people from an entirely separate social circle, and I was delighted to discover, in essence, old friends that I never knew I had--people with whom I could converse without hesitation, as if we'd simply picked up a conversation left off at some unremembered time--lovely folks with whom I hope to spend more time in the future.

In keeping with the theme, I wore gold (or goldish) jewelry: my mother's beautiful costume choker, gold earrings, a gold-beaded bracelet).

Elizabeth set a beautiful, golden table, with flowers and pretty glassware. Our menu (recipes here) was as follows:

Dried Apricots with Nutty Sheepsmilk Cheese
Garbanzo and Olive Spread with pita
Turkish Mezze Salad
Lamb Stew with Lentils and Rice
Midas Touch Ale

My understanding is that we were supposed to have Carmelized Fennel Tarts for dessert but some culinary disaster preempted that addition to the menu, alas.

There were other additions to the menu that weren't quite period: the pomegranate molasses, for example, on the salad that was certainly in the spirit of the event, and that was remarkable for its symphony of flavors on the tongue. And I need to get the recipe for the lentil side dish that Jeffrey made. I could eat that stuff all day. But it was all delicious. That lamb stew was out of this world, and the dried apricot appetizer would be apropos at any party at all.

The Midas Touch Ale was a kind of cross between beer and mead, light and not too sweet, a lovely summer beverage. It was a molecular recreation of the ancient brew from Dog Fish Brewery, which apparently has a whole line of recreated ancient ales. I'd love to try more of them, but apparently the Midas Touch is the only one in regular production at the moment. I could have finished every bottle on the table if I'd had my druthers.

The Flickr set for the event includes pictures of every dish we made, as well as of some of the guests and the commemorative tee shirts that Elizabeth and Jay F. created for the event. What a perfectly lovely Friday night. There's nothing quite like a community-created dinner party for a lovely evening!

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PS: I have to quote Jeffrey's Facebook post about it here because it's so marvelous:

We made History!! Or, rather, we ate history! The West Seattle Chowder and Marching Society's First Annual "Feast Like a Phrygian" day turned out beautifully - our motto: "Eating History, One Meal at a Time" (thanks, Jay!).

For this first-ever Society event, we recapitulated King Midas' legendary funerary dinner, with lamb and lentil, rice and hummus, mezze and misbehavin', beer and wine and, as they say, more.

Thanks to Elizabeth, for being the motivational force behind this event, an organizational force helping us stay on track (there were a lot of moving parts, as it turned out), and for graciously hosting the assembled feasters. Also, she bought the beer!!

Thanks to Janna and Eileen, and to Irene, for putting together some awfully tasty dishes, including Janna's Extinction Level Garlic Hummus with Olives and Eileen's well-composed Turkish Mezze Salad in C# with Newly Discovered Pomegranate Molasses (no pantry should be without some). Irene was preparing to make a burnt offering to the local Household Gods - apricots, goat cheese and pistachios. Fortunately, we were able to stop her before she could burn anything and devoured it all!! All!

Thanks to Tom, for his shameless dinner-table recounting of a Whale of a Story. I've yet to see a table burst into laughter that spontaneously, which, on the whole, is probably better than bursting into flames. Not many tables would listen to Tom make whale sounds for three minutes while waiting for the punch line.

Karen wore a toga-ish. She and Tom - dedicated and experienced party-goers - braved heavy Mariners-game traffic to make their way out to West Seattle.

It was good to meet Janna. I felt, oddly, that we were almost related in a way. Could that be possible? In honor of the Midas themed event, Janna had quite the Gold ensemble, including a gorgeous Family Heirloom Necklace of the Costume Kind.

Margot was merry, despite the catastrophic failure of her Caramelized Fennel Tarts containment vessel just before the event!!

I finally met Marti and Jay - what nice folks! Also Jennifer and I am so sorry but I don't remember her SO's name.

We ate, drank and were pretty darned merry. Jay ("I eat deadlines for breakfast") even designed a snappy, stylish, "King Midas Feast" T-shirt, for what Historical Feasting Event would be complete without a well-tailored T?

And there was some awesome babe named Bonney there. Aii yi yi!!

I'm grateful for having such a bunch of adventurous, engaging and generous people in my life. Let's do this again!

Comments

[prettyshrub.livejournal.com]

That looks wonderful! Way back when I rented a basement apartment, my landlady and her friends would occasionally have medieval themed meals and wear appropriate costumes.

We should really do more things like that.

[varina8.livejournal.com]

Everything tasted and looked so delicious. I was glad you brought your camera to document the meal.