The Tome of Doom: Scrolls Over The Years.

 I've been tasked to submit a new SCA resume. Easy peasy, I did one when I was a protege, so it'll take nothing at all to just add to...

er...

Y'all, where's my brain? What happened to me? Pandemic? COVID? Life? I realized today, trying to shift mental gears away from my mundane work project, I not only didn't know my last batch of SCA artistic endeavors, I wasn't sure when I last created a feast.

I mean, there have been some feasty-like things, Queen's Teas, sideboards, classes, that weird thing Minion and I did for Kingdom A&S last year where everyone got fed all the time... but just doing a feast? Not so certain.

I spent an hour trying to think anything at all before recalling the Tome of Doom. You see, a couple years back, Dame Sara and Duchess Lailiane ran a special contest at Kingdom Arts & Sciences on Body of Work. As a feast cook, I wasn't sure how I could share all I did. And... honestly, these past several years, my emphasis has been a handful of strongly-researched KA&S entries and a whole lot of talking and writing. So, instead of a massive display that year, I brought a three inch, three ring binder of my stuff. It was small, but it was something.

Having some place to display these things is a good thing, and a reminder that I have actually done some of the things. Though post-herpetic neuropathy robbed me several years of the ability to keep my hands still enough to be a decent scribe, I do have examples of those previous works. And man, I'd love to tackle it all again. 

Here are some of those scrolls.

Cordials, 26 Years Later, A Kingdom Arts & Science Entry in 2023.

Attaching here as a PDF because every time I go to format it... breaks. 

The Cheap Eats: Feastcooking on an Extremely Limited Budget

Master Katryne MacIntosh the Strange, OP

Kingdom of Gleann Abhann

So, you’ve decided to offer your skills as a feastcook - but your group has little in the bank account, or the site is so expensive that the budget must be cut so the money is coming out of the food line item, or your autocrat is especially stingy. What to do?

Feastcooking in the SCA is (at least in my experience) a far more smaller budget than what you get cooking in the commercial and mundane world. The labor is all volunteer, and the goal of these cheaper feasts is usually to keep events affordable for the masses. 

Over the 35 years I have participated in the SCA, I have cooked feasts for as little as $4 a head. My biggest budget was a $6 per head just for feast affair - but most of the time, a $6 a head amount also including making sure there was a Friday night sideboard, Saturday breakfast, and often Saturday lunch as well. Though many groups now offer a budget of $10-15 a head, the funds tend not to go as far, with food costs rising with inflation.

These are some of the many ways I manage to keep my budget tight and cheap. They may or may not work for you and your group, but they’re worth a shot. Good luck!

1. How to prepare to create a cheap feast.

What resources do you have? Do you have access to food storage space? Cold storage? If you or your friends have freezers, you can buy months in advance to hold until later. Dry pantries and INDOOR storage space is key to getting great bargains and deals.

What’s your timeline? Do you have months to plan and shop, or is your event mere weeks away?

Do you have access to a vacuum sealer? Do you can? Do you have a dehydrator? Food preservation devices allow you to take advantage of cheaper seasonal produce and to prepare dishes and sauces way ahead of when you need to have them.

Set aside certain areas for food storage, and make sure those living with you understand that items you’re using for feast are not to be touched. Keep all of your receipts.

Determine what sort of culture and time period you’ll be cooking for, and do research on the spices, proteins, vegetables, and cooking methods used therein. Be familiar with the sort of dishes that culture would prepare. Come up with a dream menu, but have alternates you can turn to if you find a deal on something else. Above all, be flexible.

2. Where to shop for cheap feasts.

Level 1: Your local supermarket. Once you have your dream menu and backup dishes settled, scan sale circulars weekly to see if any of these items come up on special. Your freezer is your best friend here. 

Level 2:  Local butchers. In some communities, these are combined with delis; in others, they may be part of a processing house. Get to know the butchers in your area - at your grocery store, at stand-alone shops, at hilal markets, etc. Let them know what you’re looking for. 

Level 3:  Food producing companies. Find out what foods are produced for regional and national distribution in your area and see if they have on-site purchasing or an outlet. For instance, Gleann Abhann has a large ConAgra facility in Russellville, Arkansas that has a company store on the edge of the property. The prices are lower than what you find in the stores, and the public can shop there. Tyson Foods in nearby Dardanelle has a Family Store built into the backside of its factory - and doesn’t advertise at all - but the public can shop there, too. These items are often product overruns or slightly irregular.

Level 4: Discount shops and “bent-and-dents.” These are groceries and stores that offer items usually sourced downwards - unopened packaged foods from conveniences stores; overstock from grocery stores, Walmart, and Target; and near-to-outdated items from groceries and restaurant supply houses. You can sometimes acquire food items at a tenth of the cost of what they might be offered at in a traditional grocery store. Keep an eye on product dates.

Level 5: Discount bins. This newer concept takes not only overstocked items from traditional retailers but also works to distribute and sell Amazon returns. Some discount bin stores will intake bulk unopened food items. Shop by the day - there’s usually an opening price on the first day the items are offered that goes down day by day. 

Level 6:  Local restaurants. Have a Heavenly Ham around? A local bakery? Local restaurant supply? Talk to them about the parts they don’t use or that they toss at the end of the day. Heavenly Ham won’t sell the ends of those hams to people because they’re not pretty - but if you get in with a manager and ask if they’ll save the ends for you if you pick them up, you can get a lot of protein for free really quick. Bakery two-day-olds, which can’t be sold, can be frozen or dehydrated to use in stuffings and gingerbread later on. I’ve had everything from fried pies to spaghetti noodles donated this way.

Level 7: Local farmers and producers. If you have enough time, you can buy baby chicks or rabbits to be raised for your feast. The cost of feed and these smalls is usually far less than what you would pay for the full-sized creature. Local produce farmers may also have ugly fruit and veg they are willing to sell cheap - and if you put up through canning, you can really stock back a lot of ingredients.

Level 8: Ethnic markets. Have a Chinese grocery or Indian market nearby? Spices in particular tend to be a lot cheaper bought in bulk from these locations, and more exotic items are often available.

Level 9: Donations. Sometimes you just need to ask. I’ve managed everything from donated gas station pizza to donated two pound sausages to donated cases of tomatoes, just by asking. Some organizations need to donate a certain amount of product each year to meet tax obligations, and some have it as part of their outreach. It doesn’t hurt to ask. You can also arrange between your local SCA branch and the business in question to get a letter written stating the food items are being used for an event by a local 501c3 organization.

3. When to obtain foods for cheap feasts.

Shopping seasonally for your region can help you acquire the items you need. If you are doing a period fast, this can be harder, but you can resource ingredients through local farmers markets and local producers that bring certain items to market later in the year. Or you can harvest yourself - many commercial farms growing produce will now have laborers leave less-than-perfect fruits and vegetables in the fields, and will allow you to go out and pick what’s left. We’ve acquired turnips and turnip greens, watermelons, and peaches that way - and had offers on a lot of other things.

You might also check in with your hunter friends and see if they have more meat than can be stored in their freezer. In our area, that means venison, squirrel, duck, and turkey - all of which make for decent proteins for the table.

4. The naturally cheap eats.

Need to stretch a feast? Carbs are your friend. They may not be everyone’s friend - many of our diners today are diabetic, on a Keto diet, or otherwise avoiding bread, rice, oats, potatoes, and such. But they are the easiest way to stretch a feast. 

Those ethnic food stores often offer bags of rice very, very cheap. Doing an Asian feast? Go for colorful rice blends or sticky rice to enhance the exotic feel without expanding the budget. Middle Eastern eats? Make flatbreads with whole wheat or buckwheat flour - they can be prepared in advance and frozen. New World feast? Add corn and squash sides. Make homemade bread or source bulk from local bakers.  

5. The concessions.

If you don’t have a lot of time or the theme of your feast is very particular, it may be harder to keep it on a very tight budget. You can balance this by offering “taster” items, usually small dishes offered to each person by someone serving as a waiter rather than placed on a feast trencher. By only offering a dish to people who actively want to try it, you reduce overall food cost while still giving diners a taste of the item. I’ve done this with raw eel and tuna at a Japanese feast before - with the added benefit of those allergic to fish didn’t have to worry about cross-contamination.

Making a feast cheaper can often mean offering more, not less. In addition to the carby items, you can increase the number of prepared vegetables served along limited protein options. You might be surprised to find how far an eggplant or a couple of zucchini will go. Look for sale items throughout the planning process that fit into the culture you’re cooking and add them along the way. An investment of $5 in noodles can change the satiety factor of a feast quickly.

6. What if you can’t keep it under budget?

Communication is the most important thing. Talk with your autocrat if you are having a hard time with the food budget. Reach out to seasoned feast cooks for advice, especially for sourcing foods. Most event stewards have a little wiggle room built into a budget. Most important of all - make those connections as early as you can. This is one area where forgiveness is harder to achieve than permission. Remember that your funds come from a volunteer organization, and that no matter what the budget, there’s a limit. Be flexible, keep an open mind, and be willing to change your menu to fit the items available.

Merchanting in the SCA

Master Katryne MacIntosh the Strange, OP and Magister Jali Bukha, OL

Kingdom of Gleann Abhann

So, you want to be an SCA merchant. The allure of being able to sit behind a counter, take money from people, and have early access to sites is attractive to you. You envy the ease of which merchants tend to make friends and acquaintances and how people come directly to them to chat. And the idea of being able to quit your day job and SCA full time looks really nice.

If you’re ready to get past the daydreaming, we can help. But beware: the road you are on is bumpy. There are a lot of up front costs to being a merchant. There is physical toil involved. In the end, you might choose to set up an Etsy store instead. 

How to begin:

What do you bring to the table that people want to sell? It has to be something that people want to take with them, sold at a price they consider reasonable, the sale of which covers your costs. It doesn’t have to be a large scale operation, but you have to start somewhere.

Focus.  Choose a genre and focus on products in that range. 

(Kat) When I started in the SCA, I saw how popular merchants were, and I found that many merchants were given free pass to attend events and early access onsite. I was a poor college graduate at the time, with little funds. I learned how to thrift items and primarily sold feast gear back in the 1990s. I also learned how to fingerweave belts from macrame cord. For about five years, I merchanted at about half of the events I attended. However, I was only ever able to make expenses - gas and event costs - and I could only weave so many belts. After a washout experience at Gulf Wars 8, I quit the whole operation.

Find something you are good at making or sourcing, and focus on that idea to begin your business. Jali makes woodcut blocks for block printing. He started out making blocks for friends, and was loudly encouraged to start selling them. For Jali, beginning his merchant journey started with reaching out to his merchant friends and asking to consign. Then we started attending some smaller events with a pop-up tent and a few tables. His reputation grew. When the pandemic struck in 2020, he shifted to focusing on his Etsy site, and sales took off. In 2022 we started renting a tent and selling at both Gulf Wars and Pennsic. Now he’s the world’s largest maker of woodcut stamp blocks for medieval enthusiasts - at least, that’s how we market ourselves!

Having a specific niche sets you up to succeed, if you are merchanting to the right audience. If you make clothing, be aware that many merchants make clothing. Consider specializing for a particular market. For instance - Silvertree Souq makes garb for Ottoman, Turkish, Persian, and other Eastern cultures, while Ancient Attaliers specializes in Roman and Greek attire. Lots of people make armor - but some make armor from leather, others steel, and still others lamelar and plastic. Unique merchants - like Auntie Arwen’s Spices - tend to draw a loyal following with very particular items. 

Before your first merchanting event, build up stock. It’s usually OK to run out of merchandise the first small event, but for larger events you may not be asked back.

I have my merchanting idea ready to go. How do I get started?

First off, are you properly prepared to sell? While smaller local events may offer you a place to set a table up in a hall, larger events require you to bring your own stuff in - that’s tables and table covers, tents, lighting (if you’ll be open after dark), and everything else you need for your business.

A pop-up tent is usually fine to begin with - as long as you have decent weather. If you plan on merchanting for a long time, you’ll want something period-esque, either a proper re-enactment tent or a facsimile. We use a high-grade PVC covered tent at Gulf Wars that’s based on a frame similar to a carport tent. For the few smaller events we do outside, a 12x20 carport is our go-to. And for Pennsic, we rent a 20x40 and live in it throughout the war.

Tables don’t have to be fancy. I know several merchants who use portable, collapsable sawhorses and sheets of plywood covered with a tablecloth. We use standard folding tables and card tables. We ensure every bit of those plastic things are covered with cloth tablecloths before we start setting out stock.

Then there’s business registration. Not every event requires you to be licensed as a vendor; many merchants start out as what we used to call “blanket merchants,” operating like a crafter at a flea market. However, as time has passed, more events and more event sites now require a level of mundane registration and insurance.

Cat Man Do Designs is a licensed vendor in Little Rock, Arkansas, with a State of Arkansas tax license. This allows us to merchant online and to show up at Arkansas events with our set-up and sell blocks. However, Arkansas event vending (not including farmers markets and cottage industries) requires the event managers to take in taxes for each vendor and provide them with an envelope for sending in a check direct to the state. The tax is 7% of all sales.

Gulf Wars has a different system. Mississippi requires the event itself to be registered, and taxes are gathered on-site en masse to send to the state. Merchants here are required to pay their taxes when they close on Saturday of war. The tax is 6% of all sales - and must be paid in cash to the merchant office.

Other states, like Texas and Pennsylvania, require the merchant to register with those states and send taxes in on a schedule. For Pennsylvania, the tax rate is 6% - and you are required to have a license before you vend, always. However, certain items - like tools used for making clothing - are exempt. It is worth your time to go through and determine which taxes you will be obligated to pay.

You can, however, register as a wholesaler in some instances, or get a wholesale vending license so you can obtain materials without paying sales tax. This varies by state. 

You’ll also want to determine how you’ll take payments. Almost all merchants take cash - which means you need to acquire a money box or similar item to hold funds in, and obtain cash for change before you start vending. There’s also Point of Sale systems that you can operate through your phone, like Square, that can be set up to keep track of inventory, automatically deposit funds, and allow you to send customers electronic receipts. Options like Apple Pay, CashApp, and Venmo can also be considered - more folks seem to be trending towards these phone-based apps as the way they pay. Being able to take payments in multiple fashions is helpful and might score you a sale when other vendors can’t come through.

And then there is event insurance. Many events require you to carry it. It’s usually a $1,000,000 policy that will run you around $100 - or if you merchant a lot, you can get a year-round policy.

I’m ready! Now what?

Contact the autocrat or merchant coordinator at any event you plan to vend at. Ensure that merchants are welcome. Find out whether it’s OK for you to set up inside or outside. See what the tax plan is for your operation. Register for the event.

Our first event as full-scale block merchants was Gulf Wars 2022. We borrowed a large tent, hobbled together enough tables and tablecloths, and brought every block Jali could make. When it rained, our entire floor became a sandpit. When it stormed, tables flipped. The merchantcrat made Jali cry. One of our stoves combusted while we were trying to get dinner done in the back. It was stressful!  But a couple of months later, we went to Steppes Warlord packed tight in a Honda CRV, put out four tables, and came back with less than half our stock - and convinced we should try Pennsic on our own. 

Make sure you plan well in advance how you will get to site, where you will stay, and - this is very important - who will be able to help you set up. Jali and I usually plan to do all of our own set-up at smaller events - including setting up tent and tables and pulling out the blocks. For something smaller like Kris Kinder (a one day shopping event), we plan to arrive around 6:30 in the morning. We bring a dolly for moving tables and boxes of blocks into the space and usually have the blocks arranged by culture so we can pull them out quickly. Doors open at 9am. We have to close at 3pm and take down the shop and remove it by 6pm. It’s a busy event, so we make sure we don’t give ourselves more work than we can accomplish in that time.

At Pennsic, we rent our tent, drive our trailer under it, and begin set-up. It takes us two to three days to get our personal quarters and the front of the shop set up. There is no waiting to set up either - once we begin merchanting, that’s our full-time job.

At Gulf Wars, you may have noticed merchants asking for help getting set up online. Gulf Wars merchants, for the most part, are allowed on-site about 24 hours before the site opens to everyone else. Merchanting opens at 3 pm on Saturday. It’s a very quick turnaround. Securing your help in advance is key - merchants are allowed a limited amount of early-on help, and every one of those individuals has to be registered well in advance of the event.

Be prepared, and do not expect help from other folks. Merchants are often expected to pack down while court is going on, or to clear a hall before the feast is set out. Making sure you can pack down and out and not cause an inconvenience to the event or its staff ensures you get an invite back.

The costs:

Your stock and inventory - whatever it costs to produce your items

Your event registration (and merchant fee, if applicable)

Your infrastructure (tent and tables)

Your transportation costs (gas and hotel)

Your taxes

The price of Pennsic, for a merchant (2024 numbers):

Our booth at Pennsic is a necessity. It is our biggest show of the year for Cat Man Do Designs. It's a minimum of eight hours a day, for 12 days, with one employee. We tried doing it just the two of us the first year and that about killed us. It's not just sitting back and waiting for people to purchase stuff. There's also the set-up, which can take a full work day, and take-down, which thanks to not having to actually pack down our tent means we can be off-site eight hours after we close, once everything is properly balanced inside the trailer and our site is gone over to make sure we have left it cleaner than when we arrived.

To be considered to be a merchant at Pennsic, the largest Society for Creative Anachronism in the world, you have to send photos of what you sell and a diagram of your set-up. Once you are vetted in (which, if you're a first timer may take a couple of years to get a spot), you have to apply each year. That application fee, space fee, electric fee (if you want electrical - there are some folks still using gas or battery-operated lanterns for light), and site book advertising (yes, you do want that), can rack up. Our merchant fee came to $579 this year.

Registration for Pennsic is completely separate. For our team, that was $540 - because the help we brought was under 18. We had to be registered for Pennsic before we could secure merchant space.

We have a couple of choices on tents - because you have to have a tent. We decided a while back to rent a tent for Pennsic because the extra weight of carrying one meant we wouldn't be able to have as much merchandise to sell. Our tent, a 20x40 tent that houses us all, is $1050 for the 16 day span. Considering we're not having to put it up, it's a bargain. And it's insured in case something terrible happens with the weather.

Oh, and then there's insurance, which every Pennsic merchant is required to have. We're fortunate to have found an event insurance company that covers Pennsic and only charges $150 a year.

To get there, we take two days, with an overnight a little more than halfway between here and there. That's a night or two at a hotel for about $100. And gas? Ho boy. That all depends on what the gas is running in each of the six states we're traveling through. The variations can be up to a dollar a gallon. Towing a trailer that contains all our gear to live outdoors, all the tables for stock, the stock itself, and everything including the kitchen sink (yes, we have one of those) means gas mileage is terrible - think, less than 15 mpg for the towing vehicle. We take a route that's flatter than the most direct route, and Google says it's 978 miles. It comes out to right at 1000 once you count in diversions, road construction, and the distance off road for gas stops. Gas runs about $200-250 per vehicle, and we take two, because three people in the cab of a standard old school pickup for two days is... a LOT.

And you have to eat, so however you prep for that, you do. You can eat on site - average meal is around $10, which is pretty good for a festival, and Penn Market has ingredients. Three people for 16 days.

Put all that together, and we spend around $3000 for Pennsic before we ever open the tent and sell the first block.

Some merchants come from further away, some are closer to site. There are merchants with a bigger footprint and larger crews, and there are smaller merchants with a smaller footprint who are merchanting by themselves. In all cases, it's a financial commitment that means we spend a lot of money even before we get to site. That doesn't include the thousands of dollars in production cost and labor - from Grav and I drawing blocks, to him lasering and cutting them out and gluing and sanding and finishing them.  And there's the time I have to take off from my job, which between travel time, event time and recovery is at least three weeks where I'm not on the road or writing. Getting my work done at Pennsic really isn't an option, considering the hours we put in there. And he can't make stock while we're at Pennsic - we can't haul a laser with us, and there's a no power tool rule. And trust me, you don't want him hand-carving blocks. It takes months for each one and he tends to bleed on them.

We're fortunate that most of our clientele has been understanding about our prices. But from time to time, someone will make a statement about our prices being too high. We don't pass along a lot of the extra cost to customers - we charge the same whether it's through Etsy or if we're at the event - and we're conservative on our price structure.  We suspect the same of our fellow merchants. We're all just trying to survive, ,marketing needed goods to our fellow SCA friends.

If that hasn’t scared you off, here are simple suggestions for merchanting:

1. Make friends with fellow merchants and seek out their advice.

2. Pay your taxes.

3. Communicate with event sites and stewards.

4. Make sure you have plenty of stock.

5. Take physical and mental care of yourself.