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| Photo by Jesse Gifford |
This was a nice relaxing feast with games and great food and company and, amazingly, no monsters or slayings or even much intrigue, at least that I noticed. Which meant we could focus on the important things like cheese and fruit punch and friends and more cheese.
Each course of the meal was tasty, and each was announced with the ringing of a big honkin’ farm-style dinner bell. In between courses people dispersed to chat, gamble in the Chimeron Casino (with its swank new roulette wheel) and play games in small groups. People played all kinds of strategy games involving cards and walls and witches and giant lizards. During all this, a gaggle of kids dashed around in the ample extra space, playing with balls and little chariots and their own games involving checkers and ponies and stuff.
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| Photo by Jesse Gifford |
Then whenever the bell rang we’d head back to our tables to eat the next course and check in on our table-mates to see how their days were going. At my table, that meant asking Viro how he was doing on his research of how to fix Iawen (dang that girl’s messed up…you don’t need as many ales as you do to make sense of Tetch, but I’d still recommend at least two tankards-full before you start to delve) and sharing in witty and eye-opening conversation with the likes of Orla and Atticus, who told us all kinds of crazy stuff about the nature of our world and his homeland with the diamond-toothed trolls. Oh, and Jean Baptiste let us in on the fact that there’s totally a so-far-unnamed god of food we didn’t know about yet…but we should! Why aren’t there more gods of food in the Realms? If proper worship involves eating lots of cheese and bacon and desserts, sign me up!
So that leads us to the food. Of course with Faelinn and Veros and crew cooking it, you knew it was going to be good!
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| Photo by Jesse Gifford |
There was cheese and cheese balls and crackers and swirly cheesy meaty things and other tasty bites available all day long. The first official course was Sowyps (which is pronounced “sops” ‘cause that’s how sophisticated foreigners say it) which was soup but you filled your bowl with ingredients first then poured the broth on top – so for me that meant two kinds of meat and two kinds of cheese and bread all hot and melty. Then we had cheese tartlets (which I think almost made Atticus pass out from deliciousness) and meatball and pulled pork sandwiches. You’ve had pulled pork made by Faelinn and Veros before, right? My own kids barely left me any leftovers.
The salad was good and harvesty (candied pecans!) and the stuffed chicken came with harvesty veggies, nicely seasoned…and there was more cheese in the chicken. Everyone at my table was so stuffed from the previous courses that the main course nearly defeated us…almost, ‘cause amazingly we managed to save a little room for dessert. Carrot cupcakes and super chocolatey dense brownies (I think both Atticus and I were at risk of passing out this time) with caramel and chocolate mints of which my children, again, provided no leftovers.
So all in all, if you missed it, you missed out on lots of cheese and meat and walnuts and chocolate, and fun and funny times, good games, good gambling, and good company. You should go next year!
