Food Cloths and Community
My father can smoke a mean brisket. I remember a time at a block party many years ago when he had put regular beef hot dogs on the smoker and people raved how great the sausage was. I miss the days of block parties. It was a time when neighbors hung out together just because they lived near each other. I have only met one or two of my neighbors. Nat has met more. I do not envision block parties. My mother is a good cook. She hasn't been motivated lately though.
Heath is a buddy of mine. The man can frigging cook. His family has trailers they take to rodeos and county fairs that are huge kitchens. Heath brings one to TRF more often than not. My goodness we eat well out there. He had pork chops once that he said "These are not my best". I nearly gnawed the bone to my finger tips.
I guess that is the way things are going. We have better communications these days so the physical distance between us means less. In covered wagon days, you had to hang out with your neighbors because every one else in the world was a couple of weeks via mail away. With the advent of better communications and transportation, who needs neighbors?
it is funny how it still revolves around food. When we are at faire, the pit, as the kitchen trailers are called, is the center of just about everything. It is the source of light and the place where the food comes from. Our camp is famous. Breakfast time is interesting too. We have people come by who are still asleep and just floating on the smell of eggs, bacon and coffee.
It's going to be interesting this year because they have completely banned open fires of all kinds. The only exception is the one fire circle where people drum and dance. We always had a contained pit. I'm not sure what we are going to do about that. The rules say stoves and lanterns are the closest thing to fires aloud. Great.  I know several pyros who are going to have trouble with that one (Ken).
Faire is more about community than dressing up. It is about having out with your friends, getting drunk and acting like someone else for a little while. Some people do drugs. We go to faire. Some do both, but they keep it to themselves most of the time. We try to be cool with it if it doesn't cause any trouble.
Besides, I like waring a kilt.