Thoughts of the Lady in the Tower

2004-11-22 - 12:37 p.m.

Castle Notorious

I don't have the energy (or time during lunch) to do a complete accounting of Dun Carraig's Baronial Birthday, but I will talk about what became the highlight of my day: the sugar castles.

At each table during feast, a bag of "supplies" were placed - sugar cubes, icing, M&Ms, fruit rollups, gumdrops, graham crackers, marshmallows, pretzels, all sorts of stuff. We were invited to make castles from our supplies.

We were warned that there weren't sufficient supplies at every table and we'd have to trade, but don't think that part worked as well as they hoped - the only thing I think we wished we had more of was sugar cubes to build the walls taller. And I wished the icing was the kind that hardened, to give it a more 'glue' like character.

Anyway, We started with a curtain wall and portcullis. I noticed some other groups were doing round towers, so I added one in the back. It wasn't much of a tower because we didn't have enough sugar blocks to raise it above the curtain wall. So, to make it look more tower-like, I decided it needed a sloped roof. I assembled a pretzel support and laid fruit rollups from the support to the sides of the walls.

Debbie (a friend of Amalia's from work, it was her first event) announced that it looked like a Tikki Bar, and so it became. Drunken, passed out Teddy Grahams adorned the front lawn (one had frosting/vomit on his face). Richard tied a hangman's noose out of licorice, and strung up a gummi bear from the walls (this is what happens when you don't pay your tab at the Tikki Bar). Richard decorated the outside with Necco wafers, and the embattlements were alternating marshmallows and gumdrops. One of us carpeted the inside with mini M&Ms. It was garishly colorful and had an amusing story. I think it was the only one that was named, too: Castle Notorious.

So when Jonathas announced the winners, he couldn't pick just one. Another pair had the best defensible castle, but Castle Notorious won for being the "Best Place to Live".

One of the prizes was a non-alcoholic champagne. I tried it yesterday out of curiosity. It tasted EXACTLY like apple juice (more like it than any other non-alcoholic bubblies that I've tried). Interestingly enough, the guinea pigs LOVED it. Daisy tried to gnaw my finger off. Hmph.

Pictures available.