Angsting on Largesse.

.....Last night Her Excellency Brighid made an impassioned plea for Largesse for both Barony and Kingdom. I am personally a little gunshy these days on that particular subject, especially when I started thinking about sticking my toe in that proverbial pond again.

.....Sometime around 2000, lasting for about four reigns or so, I would give a set of dragon circlets. Usually this consisted of four narrow circlets and four extra wide circlets, all in a dragon pattern (for Dragon's Laire of course). There was a plea for largesse from the Crown at the time and when I asked, Master Ralg also thought it would be a good idea.

.....So, as I said, for four reigns, a new set of circlets would be made and submitted. I don't think that they ever went to the Crown direct, usually they went to a largesse coordinator or other member of the Crown's personal staff. I never received a 'thank you' from the Crown. But I also never expected one either. I just thought of it as a contribution to help them out.

.....Fast forward a few years to a time when Mastress Gwenllyn started with her massive pottery largesse campaign. Her gifts of largesse were greatly appreciated and I noticed that she received a lot of praise and public thank-yous for her work. That was when I started suspecting something was amiss. But I still didn't say much until Gwen started pushing at others around her to start producing largesse for the Kingdom. I mentioned to her at that time that I DID my part at largesse production, but wasn't sure if the Crown even knew.

.....Well, you all know Mistress Gwen, she was off on a mission at that point and started asking people what was up. Were my gifts of largesse being recieved? Were they appreciated? And that is when we learned the answer. Apparently, when Crowns received the circlets, they were put with the rest of the largesse, but mainly they were made to disappear. This was due to the fact that when they were given as gifts, many people took them as a symbol that they were being given Court Baronies, even if they were just being given as generic gifts.

.....So, even though a few were given out, most generally disappeared. I was quite embarrassed. This is a good lesson on why bad things can happen when everyone is doing their best to be 'polite'. Sometimes the best policy really is to be honest. If someone had told me that these were not wanted, and the reason why, I would have been good with that. Or more importantly I wouldn't have wasted so much time, energy and expense.

.....And just thinking of the waste. Averaging to four narrow circlets (which sell at $32 each) and four extra wide (which sell at $46 each), that is $312 worth of merchandise for each reign for a total of $1,248. Each circlet takes approximately an hour to complete from start to finish for a total of 32 production hours.

.....I guess the take away lesson here is to take time to get honest information up front before starting any kind of largesse making mission. Talk to the right people. Making largesse to help out the kingdom is a good thing, so not expecting reward or thanks is a good thing. But make sure you are not getting recognition because the Crown is overwhelmed with largesse and not because they are figuring a discrete way to get rid of what you've given.

.....Largesse made by An Tir is pretty cool stuff. For July Coronation a couple of years ago, I received a nice pile of pretty cool stuff. Most of which was distributed amongst my autocrat team. And it was greatly appreciated. So the Crown definitely needs and desires a great deal of it.

.....Don't let this entry deter your largesse making mission. Just a musing on my part. I was thinking last night that I could make some of my etched bracelets for largesse. But you can bet I'm going to find out if they will actually be wanted BEFORE I turn them over to the Kingdom. :-)

.....Aaron / Arontius.

Today's Christmas Recipe.

.....Mmmmmm, another special recipe for those cooks on my friends list. Taken from 'Entertaining With Insects,' by Ronald L. Taylor.

Tillamook Tarts

Biscuit dough (use your favorite recipe for 1 dozen biscuits)

Filling:
1/2 cup Tillamook cheese, grated
1/4 cup marinated artichokes, chopped
1/4 cup garlic fried mealworms, chopped
1/4 cup fresh parsley, minced

Roll or pat dough until it is about 1/8 inch thick. Cut it into 3-inch squares. Place in the center of each square one teaspoon of the filling. Moisten the corner of the dough with water. Fold up the corners and pinch together to make a tart shape. Bake the tarts at 425 degrees for about 10 minutes. Enjoy warm or hot.

.....Those holiday parties could be EXTRA SPECIAL this year. :-)

.....Aaron / Arontius.