GrangeCon2 2008

Bake-Off

This was inspired by the short story "Utensile Strength" by Patricia Wrede, found in her short story collection Book of Enchantments. We held the bake off Friday evening.

Nate Vegetarian Lasagna

Paul Quick After Battle Cake

Cat Jalapeno Cheese Cornbread

Steph Spinach Balls

Bret Chili

Rich Corn

Thursday the con officially started in evening. Bill arrived, from out on Long Island, before breakfast on Thursday and spent at least part of the day with Paul & Nate. The three of them checked into Eden Resort in the afternoon. I arrived after work, followed by Roberta, Steph, and Bret.

Friday morning we enjoyed muffins in the room, provided by Steph, with the exception of Bill who cannot miss a breakfast buffet at Eden Resort! Shortly thereafter he and Nate wandered off to I forget where. Roberta played several of her filk songs while Paul and Steph played Scrabble with Roberta’s special edition Scrabble set. I lounged on the bed and put in requests now and then.

Rich arrived from Virginia just before lunch, followed by Pat & Jill from Philly. Those of us who were now in residence went down to the hotel casual dinning establishment for lunch and a roundtable of good conversation.

In the afternoon Bret arrived, with his usual “truck” load of SF paraphernalia, and settled in with Pat, Jill and Rich in their suite. At 2:00PM Key arrived, on a break from work, and we held the Lancaster SF & Fantasy book group to discuss Hugo nominee The Last Colony. After the book discussion Key went back to work and the con broke up into various groups to relax for a bit. Steph, Paul, and I headed for the indoor pool and hot tub.

Sometime in the early evening we began to prepare for the bake off. Several items required warming which had to be done in shifts. Although we had a total of 3 microwaves they were all small. Eventually all was ready and we settled down to some serious eating. The contributions to the bake off are listed above. When we had eaten the voting was done and Paul won the FRYING PAN OF DOOM for his Quick After Battle Cake. It really was quite good. He has made it numerous times but this time was one of the best renditions. Nate’s vegetarian lasagna came in second. It is the best vegetarian lasagna I have ever eaten anywhere!

Since the 4^th was rainy and wet we put off the fireworks and went straight to the SF Trivia – very silly and not nearly as much fun as the version Bret provided last year – followed by Bill’s Guess That Tune. As usual he did a remarkable job of putting together snippets of sf movie scores and providing relevant clues when we were baffled. This event takes him hours to put together – and he thinks I do most of the work and should relax??? Hmmm.

Saturday we all went down to enjoy the breakfast buffet, with the exception of Roberta who had gotten an early start and gone sightseeing in Amish country. Breakfast was supposed to end around 10AM so those of us who do could start playing D&D. Would this be a con is everything was on schedule? So D&D began closer to noon and went well into the afternoon. Paul provided a campaign in which he managed to kill off at least 3 of us, much to the general disgust and with calls for a more equitable campaign. Paul obliged and the session ended on an upbeat note.

Since I was busy playing D&D I have no idea what the non-players were doing!

Key showed up to play D&D despite having had to stay up all night for his job AND he stayed to go out to dinner with us and did not leave to seek sleep until after midnight!

In the early evening we all drove out to Mt Joy to Bube’s Brewery for dinner. This turned out to be a choice that was approved by all and generated a few photos. Jill got the entire table involved by asking everyone to tell what their favorite book of the last six months was. Some of us had a brain lapse but most were on top of the subject.

Back at Eden Resort, after dark, we all trooped across the street to set off fireworks in an empty parking lot. Since some of the fireworks go way up and not straight down there was a lot of searching around in the pitch dark for remains. A flashlight next year?

Sunday morning found all attendees packing up. Before departing we went out for one last group meal. Then it was check out time and time for good byes until…next year?

Cat 8.10.08