I had not seen it before yesterday. And it’s quite well done.
Besides, after Sunday I just have Game of Thrones on the brain. SO excited that Season 4 has finally started.
-Geoff
Tag: ASOIAF
More medieval cooking on a snowy winter’s eve
This week has become one snow event after another, and we are starting to actually run out of places to put the snow when we shovel. There are really only two piles: the big one on the other side of our trash and recycling bins, between them and the neighbor’s fence; and the small one in this little corner between the steps and the house, where there is a stump I want dead anyway. So the little pile is getting close to its maximum practical size, and the other one has reached the height of the bushes. And trying to chip away all the melted, compacted snow that had refrozen as ice all over the walk and steps took almost an hour of hard work. Thirty degrees outside and I was sweating.
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Winter is coming (back)
It looks like today will be the last “balmy” day for a while, insofar as the temperature was well above freezing most of the day. Starting tonight temperatures will begin to drop, and they are predicted to not go above freezing for a good while – possibly as long as two weeks. And we will probably get more snow too, starting tomorrow night. So enjoy today, Boston, but prepare to be cooped up inside for a while. You aren’t going to want to spend a lot of time outside after today. So go grab some DVDs from the library or Netflix or whatever and catch up on your favorite show or shows. You might have some free time in the near future. Or if you are like me, grab a stack of books. It will be a good time to curl up with that monster George R.R. Martin book with a cup of something hot to drink and some small furry companions at your side.
-Geoff
Heraldry, history and ASOIAF/GoT
As dumb as it sounds, one of the things I love about George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire is the heraldry. Specifically, the house sigils, as they are more commonly known, are some of the most iconic things about the show. Of course Martin based this on medieval heraldry practices that, at least technically, still exist to this day. Plenty of families have coats of arms, as do cities, towns, universities and colleges, etc. And the central part of any coat of arms is usually a shield of some sort. In the world of ASOIAF these tend to be fairly simple (the direwolf of House Stark, both the HBO version and book-ish version) although a few do get more complex (like House Tarth, HBO version and book-ish version). And GRRM goes to a lot of trouble to describe the sigils of a great many houses in ASOIAF. To give you an idea of the sheer amount of creative calories burned, check out the Heraldry page at the Citadel website and this awesome Westeros map some uber-geeks put together. I totally geeked out about both of those.
Well, Kelly and I decided a while back to make our own sigil (in true geek fashion) and now I will share it with the world via the Intertubes. A lot of people did something similar with the “Join the Realm” promo web page done by HBO for Game of Thrones. But I wanted to do our own, with symbols that meant something to both Kelly and me.
Dachshund winter activities
I bet you are thinking I am going to talk about dachshunds in the snow and such. Well, you don’t know much about our dachshunds, then. When it’s ridiculously cold outside, like it is now, just getting the dogs out to do their business can be a trial, especially if precipitation is in progress. So most of their winter activities consist of a) trying to stay warm, b) trying to get more food than they are normally allowed, and c) sleeping. Frequently a) and c) are combined.
Um, wow.
It’s not often that I will use the phrase “bitter cold” to describe the weather in Greater Boston. But the temperature here has already fallen more than they thought it would tonight. Currently it is 2 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5, to be precise) with a wind chill of -16 degrees. That is bitter cold, at least for Cambridge or Boston.
And tomorrow was supposed to be the really cold night.
And that snow total just keeps on climbing, too. In fact, I may just have to use another term that doesn’t get tossed around much… snowpocalypseageddon.
Cue the dramatic music. Dun dun dun!
Maybe we need to worry about White Walkers after all. Wonder how much snow we will have by tomorrow morning. Not looking forward to shoveling.
-Geoff
Happy New Year, all
It is nice to not have anything to do today, except for dropping off our rent. It is a cold day outside, about 25 degrees Fahrenheit, and we have lots of cuddling animals following us around the house. And it is going to get even colder, and we are going to get a foot of snow by Friday, maybe a little more. A Nor’easter is coming our way and there may even be blizzard conditions for a while. That’s ok, as long as there are no White Walkers or wights.
Goodbye, 2013. May 2014 be a much better year for us all.
-Geoff
A quick note on history and food in ASOIAF
As I mentioned before, I have been doing a lot of experimenting with medieval recipes in recent years. And this includes trying many of the delicious-sounding foods from George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire. Thanks to the diligent work of Chelsea and Sariann, we ASOIAF fans have a fantastic resource to explore our foodie sides. Everything I have made from their website and their book has been delicious, so seriously, try making some of their recipes.
Recently, I noticed something about George’s books that I had not noticed before: an utter lack of potatoes, Irish or sweet. Now, at first glance this would seem to make sense, because they are both “New World” foods that would have been unknown to medieval Europe, which is the historical basis of much of Martin’s writing. Potatoes would not be introduced to Europe until the 16th century, when the Spanish brought them over. So no potatoes in Westeros, right? Makes sense, right?
Yes, it would… except that there are plenty of examples of other New World foods that are present in Westeros. So why include them but not potatoes?
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Winter is Coming
It may not be a winter that lasts for years, as it has been known to do in Westeros, but this winter has come a little early here in Boston this week, with temperatures not getting out of the 40s during the day and dropping into the 20s at night. We had to turn on the heat for the first time in a good while. And of course all the animals start getting a bit more cuddly at night, except for Rerun, who wants to be on the bed but otherwise gets a little grumpy if you invade his space.
Hopefully we will get back into the habit of more regular posts now, at least that is my intent. I think I will try to talk a bit more about some of the more interesting cooking I am doing this season.
-Geoff
Cooking is too much fun.
I have been cooking historical recipes for many years, mostly stuff from 18th and 19th century America. I like cooking anyway, and as a historian I find that sort of thing interesting on several levels. More recently I have been trying to make medieval recipes, and so for the last few years I have started picking up some medieval cookbooks and reading some stuff online about it. It seems a lot more difficult, I think. And although I have managed to successfully make a few things (this spinach tart turned out really well, I think), I have just not found a lot of medieval recipes that really made me want to try them.
Until a few weeks ago, when Kelly got me A Feast of Ice and Fire: The Official Game of Thrones Companion Cookbook.
The Books are Taking Over... 