Party Viking Style!

ONCE in Valhalla last night was AMAZING!

We cooked and baked and pickled for days. The food was incredible. The actors and musicians performed amazingly. The sound, lights, direction, production, and everything else sure looked flawless from where I stood. The beer and mead flowed like, well, beer and mead.

If you were a guest, you never would have guessed the level of technical difficulties we experienced in the kitchen that morning! If a major piece of equipment is going to go on the fritz, of course it will be the day of the biggest event of the year! But we are professionals, and we kept our collective calm, carried on, and pulled off possibly the best Valhalla yet!

Smorgasbord

We served ten courses, starting with freshly shucked oysters, pulled fresh from the water the same morning. Then guests enjoyed a smorgasbord of air-cured beef, cheeses, whipped butter, fresh watermelon radishes, pickled fish, the best liverwurst, and lots of different pickled veggies including ramps, fiddleheads, beets, turnips, and cauliflower; all served with my famous rye hardtack. We moved on through a parsnip soup, lamb with roasted beets, ryeberry pilaf, oven braised turkey, cheesy oats with ham, pear gastrique, beef marinated and stewed in porter served with my legendary oat cakes, and finally a dollop of yogurt drizzled with the blood of the gods (local berry puree) and golden honey.

Myself and Brian slicing and serving the most tender and juicy lamb. You can also just barely see fellow gnome Sean in the background.

In between courses, there was singing, dancing, and there were even lessons in the history and mythology of the Vikings.

Party Viking Style! A completely historically accurate song and dance number

A great time was had by all, and I look forward to next year's! Today is a pajama day, though. I'm beat!

The photos above are all from boston.com (YES I am named in the caption of that photo! Now I'm famous.) The poster below is by Miri Rooney of Short Army, who also designed both the viking and valkyrie helmets.

Stay tuned - there is talk of a Downton Abbey themed dinner coming in the foreseeable future!