This afternoon I was in the kitchen, watching the Oprah show while interminably kneading bread dough, medieval bread dough, to be exact. Kipp’s birthday party is on Saturday and we are having a Lego Knights theme, complete with stale bread trenchers for the feast.
I know, I know. This seems a little extreme for me, but just because I don’t often like to go overboard in the fuss-making department, doesn’t mean I don’t crave a little pageantry now and then. Anyway, aside from baking the plates and donning a costume, I won't be organizing any January jousting matches.
We’ve been fueling the imagination here with lots of reading about castles, building siege towers and following the Lego Knights comics. Cooking is never so much fun as when it’s historic cooking and the idea of making a few round loaves of ale flavored bread intrigued me. The main thing, aside from the children’s enjoyment, is that I’ll be getting to do my dream job for a day.
But what to put on the trenchers? That is the question. The royal dinner party will be comprised of six year olds. Turkey drumsticks for each of them might be a bit wasteful, so I'll probably serve up chicken drumsticks, potatoes & gravy, fruit and cheese and grape juice in little goblets.
As for Oprah, sometimes that woman just makes my head spin. Today on her show she was in full altruistic mode—spreading the news about tsunami relief in Indonesia and genocide and mass rape in Congo. But then the current episode was juxtaposed with previews for upcoming shows in which Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s ex-wife will reveal the identity of her new lover and celebrities are going to reveal the identity of their favorite champagnes. Whoa. The suspense.
Don’t Oprah’s producers know anything about smooth transitions? It’s is very jarring to go from genocide to celebrity gossip in the span of a day. Such haphazard programming almost conveys the sense that genocide is no more than gossip on a global scale, who did what atrocious thing to whom and so forth.
8:45:08 PM 
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