Menus

A portion of Fort's many menus follows: enjoy!

• For breakfast: a porridge laced with tabs of withered apple and raisins and slices of spicy summer sausage, sizzled up in a cast-iron skillet. For lunch: a health-conscious meal of exotic wherry salad. Slivers of leftover roast wherry toss between iceburg lettuce and fragments of white and crispy deep-fried bean threads. A robust yet intriguing dressing of soy sauce, sesame seed oil, and other seasonings lures the palate to watering. Abundant bread rounds out the meal. For dinner: roast herdbeast au jus for purists, mashed tubers, steamed (and slightly mushy) green beans tossed with corn and pearl onions. For dessert, there's an abundance of tapioca pudding with banana slices, still warm from the making.
• For breakfast: Hot cereal, fruit pastries, and since they went over so well last time, wherry-stuffed sausages. Klah and juice, of course, are always available. For lunch: a do-it-yourself affair of fresh, crusty bread, various cheeses, and assorted sliced meats (including smoked wherry and spicy chicken). We have the condiments, you fix it how you like. For dinner: herdbeast steaks, plus a creamy tuber/greens soup, and very, very garlicky bread. For dessert: the same fruit pastries from breakfast, but frosted, or cookies made with fruit fillings.
• For breakfast: a hearty wherry and dumpling soup, thick with vegetables. For lunch: fried whitefish, seasoned with salt and pepper. For dinner: mounds of sticky white rice, herdbeast sauteed in sweetened almond milk, and a faintly spicy salad of greens and black and white pepper. For dessert: a mellow custard, yellow like the hide of a clutching gold dragon.
• For breakfast: gooey, melted cheese atop rounds of bread and tomato sauce and topped with a variety of fixings, including the plum sauce pork from the day before. For lunch: wherry and dumpling soup, rich with vegetables. For dinner: cornfed herdbeast and strips of cabbage, stewed together and served with halves of small red potatoes, flavored with thyme and a touch of vinegar. For dessert: bubbly pies, hot and bursting with their sweet filling.
• For breakfast: cinnamon buns, sopped with frosting. For lunch: a chunky bouillabaise, packed with morsels of whitefish, bivalves, and spiderclaw; crusty loaves of water-glazed bread accompany this meal with plenty of butter. For dinner: chunks of herdbeast, marinated in olive oil, lemon juice, and cumin, skewered, and roasted; the succulent meat rests atop a bed of buttery boiled grains. For dessert: pastries, including two delicate angelfood cakes, frosted with white roses; the drudges present these, with much fanfare, to Felassa and Charania!
• For breakfast: an oat porridge, flavored with slivers of roast herdbeast; wedges of early summer orange from Southern. For lunch; whole, roasted wherry with a stuffing of rivergrains and peas; a salad of flowrets of broccoli and cauliflower over fresh spinach leaves (To the dragonriders who make these runs to Southern: we, who are about to eat, salute you!). For dinner: slim pasta with a sauce of mushrooms and succulent crustaceans; peas and pearl onions. For dessert: batter-dipped, roasted, sweet peas, sprinkled over vanilla icecream.
• For breakfast: a hearty fish chowder, thickened with small chunks of potato and the inevitable green peas; stalks of raw celery, slices of pear, and wedges of cheese on a tray. For lunch: slices of cold wherry and boiled sweet-sour beets. For dinner: some unusual meatrolls, stuffed with small, shelled crustaceans, and something green and lemony; steamed and sticky rivergrains; cresses, boiled to tenderness and flavored with a touch of butter. For dessert: some rather lopsided pastries, like the things a cook might try to assemble after a long and sleepless night; they taste fine for all their odd looks.
• For breakfast: red beans and rice, spicy enough to rouse the morning Sweepriders; cool, sweet wedges of cantaloupe. For lunch: thin slices of herdbeast, marinated in a dark sweet sauce of soy and garlic and grilled over smoky wood; cold lettuce, tomatoes, and curled slivers of carrot, tossed with oil and vinegar. For dinner: wherry and dumpling soup, thick with tubers, celery, and various other unnameable vegetables-creative pantry cleaning. For dessert: baked redfruit.
• For breakfast: flapjacks with berry syrup and butter; slices of peach and strawberry. For lunch: tuber salad; slices of leftover marinated herdbeast between hot, fresh bread. For dinner: an unusual soup of chicken broth, thin noodles, and plump chunks of wherry; artichokes and a rich sauce of white cheese and oregano. For dessert: shortbread and fresh, cold milk.
• For breakfast: a salad of fresh fruit, colorful and sweet, despite the encroaching winter. For lunch: whitefish sandwiches, with little chunks of celery mixed into the meat. For dinner: thick slabs of steak, grilled over the firepits and seasoned with parsley; sweet coleslaw with slivers of carrot to add color. For dessert: tapioca… pudding? This is obviously not the cook's specialty; it seems a little more brown than familiar tapioca and each bead clings to its neighbor. Tastes fine, though.
• For breakfast: seafood quiche, strangely enough, and a green salad of Romaine lettuce and shredded white cheese. For lunch: liver, sauteed with onions; the fussier weyrfolk can choose fresh meatrolls and marinated broccoli flowrets, instead. For dinner: chicken, rolled in a sweet flour and then deepfried; the cooks snuck this in, while the Healer wasn't looking. In addition to the chicken, the kitchen offers steamed corn on the cob. For dessert: a traditional treat, bubbly pies!
• For breakfast: liver with onions; the head cook has stubbornly declared that, until all of it is consumed, it will reappear like a bad Harper's ballad. For lunch: late-day omlettes with cheese and an assortment of fresh vegetables. For dinner: roast herdbeast with sweet tubers. For dessert: redfruit pie. The Head Cook had no imagination today.
• For breakfast: light, crisp waffles, of the variety once called Boll-ian? Something like that. A sauce of sweet red berries and whipped cream gives these treats some flavor. Apparently the Head Cook has relented about the liver and onions. For lunch: thick white clam chowder, fresh and fragrant. For dinner: a gravied entree of herdbeast and various vegetables, served over boiled rivergrains. For dessert: a thin and melting baklava, whose delicate layers dissolve atop the tongue.
• For breakfast: oat porridge with links of sausage; wedges of cantaloupe. For lunch: shrimp curry over rivergrains, thick with stewed carrots and chunks of potato. For dinner: roast wherry, crisp-skinned and stuffed with raisins, lemon rind, and sweet breadcrumbs; a green salad of cresses accompanies the meal. For dessert: dicot-butter cookies, shaped with meticulous care into the outline of dragons; they have jewels of tinted sugar for eyes.
• For breakfast: banana bread, steaming with warmth and served with fresh-churned butter; citron juice; slices of redfruit. For lunch: bivalves in black bean sauce, brought sizzling to your table; cresses sauteed in wherry broth. For dinner: roast herdbeast with various vegetables. For dessert: trifle ala Boll, a confection of liquered poundcake and sliced fruit.
• For breakfast: boiled eggs, dyed in all kinds of bright, speckly colors; slices of bacon; fresh Bollian fruit, cut into slivers and chilled in the cold room. For lunch: deviled eggs, made brilliant with paprika; fresh green salad with strips of roasted wherry stirred into the vinegary dressing. For dinner: eggplant, smothered with cheese; roast herdbeast. For dessert: pies made with the fuzzy, elliptical, green berry, called a dragon's egg by the Igenites.
• For breakfast: eggs benedict, spicy sausage, the last of the Bollian fruit in a colorful salad. For lunch: fried rice with many green peas and tiny chunks of carrot tossed into the mix, along with slivers of fried egg; wherry, glazed with soy and sugar and simmered with ginger and green onion. For dinner: spiderclaw souffle-made fluffy with eggwhites; eggplant, mostly unseasoned but simmered long enough to leech its bitterness; fresh buns, oval in shape with odd jagged slashes over their crusts. For dessert: custard pie! The last of the eggs were used up today.
• For breakfast: leftovers from the celebratory banquet; slabs of roast herdbeast; morsels of wherry; whole fruits of all kinds; cakes; pies; oh-and liver and onions, for those who care to celebrate with it. For lunch: sweetbread (not sweetbreads or odd herdbeast organs, mind you; this is sweet bread); curry, spicy, as if the cook were expunging all the overstocked spices in the kitchen. For dinner: wherry and dumpling soup, so thick it's almost a stew; crusty bread accompanies this meal. For dessert: a gelatin-like pudding made with the rich flavor of coconuts; it spreads over your tongue like a cloud of bliss.
• For breakfast: coins of spicy sausage, sizzled brown in a pan; scrambled eggs; and steamed rivergrains; a bowl of citrons and redfruit sits on each table. For lunch: slabs of broiled whitefish with disks of lemon laid over it; mashed tubers; and spears of broccoli, simmered in wherry broth. For dinner: pasta with meatballs; a green salad of tender lettuce and slivers of carrot. For dessert: beachberry pie.
• For breakfast: oat porridge, flavored with strips of salted dried herdbeast, boiled till they're tender again; sliced redfruit. For lunch: sliced roast herdbeast on long crusty loaves with a small cup of herdbeast broth for dipping; sliced celery and carrots. For dinner, rolls of fresh, raw packtail, spiderclaw, and pink riverfish in rivergrains, encircled by an odd black sheet of pressed, roasted seaweed; for the less daring, the kitchen offers grilled wherry legs; a green salad accompanies the meal. For dessert: dragon's egg (a fuzzy green elliptical berry) sherbert.
• For breakfast: rice gruel, flavored with wherry, ginger, and blanched peanuts; slices of cool green melon. For lunch: herdbeast and pickle sandwiches; beef tomatoes, big, solid, sweet, wedges of red. For dinner: porcine chops with redfruit sauce; brussel sprouts. For dessert: sponge cake with berry syrup.
• For breakfast: oatmeal with cinnamon, sugar, and minced redfruit. For lunch: spiderclaw, simply boiled and served with citron and clarified butter; a green salad, including more tomatoes; fresh, crusty bread. For dinner: spinach and ground herdbeast, simmered in whole, sweetened tomatoes, and covered with a bit of shredded, mellow, white cheese; more bread, left over from lunch. For dessert: beachberry pie.
• For breakfast: a cauldron of flavorful chicken broth, boiled with minced garlic and a paltry amount of hot peppers; those who would care for more hot peppers may ask the kitchen. For lunch: the cauldron of chicken soup, thick with vegetables and dumplings, still boils; however, to keep the weyrfolk from starving, the kitchen also offers a hearty roast of herdbeast, fresh bread, and to spread atop the bread, roasted garlic, soft and flavorful; a large bowl of citron lies free for the taking. For dinner: a nourishing stew, simmered tender in the pot; steamed rivergrains. For dessert: a gellid sweet creation to soothe sore throats, pieces of fruit float in its milky smoothness, and it tastes faintly of almond milk.
• For breakfast: more chicken broth with garlic and hot peppers, dumplings and vegetables abound. For lunch: yet more chicken broth; herdbeast pot pies with a flaky crust of pastry over each large dish. For dinner: noodles with a light gravy of wherry juices and sliced carrots, celery, and the like. For dessert: tapioca, not burnt this time.
• For breakfast: chicken broth with garlic and hot peppers, dumplings, and vegetables; it's turned a little murky and mushy, as the vegetables have dissolved into the broth; yeesh! For lunch: more chicken broth plus (a treat!) liver and onions. For dinner: whitefish with a creamy dill sauce and brussel sprouts. For dessert-the kitchen staff regrets to inform you that the pastries, promised for dessert, met an untimely end, when the kitchen boy who was appointed firelizard chaser fell asleep by the hearth; no, we will reveal no names, due to fear of repercussions for the unfortunate youth.
• For breakfast: swampwater soup (chicken broth with garlic and hot peppers, dumplings, and-were those once vegetables?) For lunch: spicy morsels of wherry, stir-fried with red peppers, served over steamed rivergrains. For dinner: roast herdbeast, ringed with roasted sweet tubers, their sugars caramelized in the heat of the oven. For dessert: redfruit pie, flaky and buttery and served with a topping of sweet clotted cream.
• For breakfast: no more swampwater soup, due to an armed uprising in the living cavern; instead the kitchen offers a more palatable dish of chilled, sweetened fruit and fresh rolls. For lunch: wherry ala king atop steamed long-grain rice. For dinner: herdbeast stew, served in large casseroles with a flaky crust over all. For dessert: bubbly pies.
• For breakfast: oatmeal with a few berries tossed in to still the complaints of the Weyr gourmands. For lunch: spiderclaw souffle, light and filled with cheeses; spears of asparagus, steamed with lemon. For dinner: leftover lasagna-despite its appearance, the cooks reassure you it tastes just as good as it did yesterday. For dessert: a light, tender, white cake, sweetened with powdered sugar and slices of fresh fruit.
• For breakfast: milk curd, sweetened with sugar and cinnamon, and baked in a flaky roll; slices of fresh green and orange melon. For lunch: fried wherry, seasoned with eleven herbs and spices, the Head Cook's secret recipe; buttermilk biscuits; coleslaw, sweetened with slivered carrots and the last of the winter raisins. For dinner: tender morsels of herdbeast, bathed in mild green curry, then baked in a flaky pie shell with carrot, celery, and diced potato; long loaves of crusty white bread accompany this meal. For dessert: a luscious tapioca pudding, cool and just sweet enough, with a bite to it, as the tapioca beads meet your tongue.
• For breakfast: scones with plenty of creamy white butter and strawberry jam; more berries, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, beach berries. For lunch: linguine with a creamy sauce of spiderclaw and mushrooms; sweetened carrots. For dinner: wherry ala king and long grain rice. For dessert: bread pudding, filled with raisins.
• For breakfast: scones with plenty of creamy white butter and strawberry jam; more berries, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, beach berries. For lunch: linguine with a creamy sauce of spiderclaw and mushrooms; carrots and flowrets of cauliflower, steamed with lemon. For dinner: wherry ala king and long grain rice. For dessert: bread pudding, filled with raisins.
• For breakfast: bread pudding, filled with raisins; fresh fruits of all kinds; oat porridge with cinnamon and sugar. For lunch: roast herdbeast sandwiches with slices of dill pickle; chopped carrots and celery. For dinner: steamed whitefish; rivergrains; tossed salad with a peppery dressing. For dessert: berry tarts, sweet and flaky.
• For breakfast: klah crumbcake, sweet and fragrant, warm and moist; slices of orange melon. For lunch: pickled fingerfish in cream; spears of asparagus with lemon and clarified butter. For dinner: chipped herdbeast in a mushroom and cream sauce, served over steamed rivergrains; green salad. For dessert: sugar cookies, painted to resemble dragons, some being better likenesses than others.
• For breakfast: sugar cookies and milk; sliced strawberries, chunks of cantaloupe and honeydew, together in a fruit salad; oatmeal with raisins, flown from South Boll. For lunch: whitefish sandwiches with slivers of celery for texture; green salad. For dinner: ground herdbeast, rolled in cabbage and simmered in herbed tomato sauce; sourdough bread. For dessert: sugar and cream with a touch of klah, cinnamon, and some secret ingredients to make a lucious candy, dark and bitter sweet and served by the slab.
• For breakfast: a thick creamy soup, flavored with flowrets of broccoli; crusty white bread. For lunch: wherry with stewed currants; cucumber spears with a buttermilk dressing; steamed rivergrains. For dinner: grilled kabobs of herdbeast, marinated in garlic, cumin, salt, pepper, and lemon juice; buttery cous cous; sweetened boiled beets. For dessert: generous slices of tooth-staining blueberry pie, topped with cold, sweet clotted cream.
• For breakfast: rivergrain gruel, flavored with chewy bean curd and wherry; sliced redfruit and whole citrons. For lunch: curly noodles, layered over ground herdbeast, tomato sauce, fragrant oregano, and so much cheese you can feel your arteries harden, just looking at it; a green salad. For dinner: wherry ala king; fluffy rivergrains; green peas with pearl onions. For dessert: tiramisu, a confection of light white cake, soaked in rum, flavored with klah so strong it could bite you back, and layered over with an odd light-tasting cheese.
• For breakfast: sourdough muffins with fresh-churned butter and raspberry jam; sliced ripe peaches (when you bite into them, juices dribble down your chin); oatmeal to round out the meal. For lunch: grilled whitefish, seasoned with lemon and a touch of black pepper and served on a bed of shredded lettuce; fluffy rivergrains accompany the meal. For dinner: strips of herdbeast, stir-fried with cashews and red chile peppers, also served with steamed rivergrains and a green salad. For dessert: bread pudding.
• For breakfast: crepes with curds and berry syrup; slices of orange melon. For lunch: slices of ham, herdbeast, and wherry, served atop sliced buttery crescent rolls with a variety of fixings; wherry consomme. For dinner: herdbeast stew with a rich gravy, served with buttermilk biscuits. For dessert: longjohns, the flaky cream-filled kind.
• For breakfast: red beans and rice; a fruit salad of melon balls, cherries, and soft round white fruits, sweet and mellow on the tongue. For lunch: wherry and dumpling soup, thick with vegetables. For dinner: a conglomeration of vegetables, simmered until just tender and bathed in a sweet, fragrant white sauce, derived from the seed of a certain Southern tree, chunks of wherry punctuate the dish, juicy with the sauce. For dessert: baklava.
• For breakfast: curls of dried redfruit, simmered into oatmeal with cinnamon and sweetener; slivers of cold green melon. For lunch: a soup of tender squash, wherry broth, and shimmering noodles of rivergrain flour; a green salad with a delicately spiced vinegar and oil dressing accompanies the soup, as well as fresh brown bread. For dinner: an exotic Igen delicacy of baked lamb pies; the ground lamb nestles within a pouch of dough, blended with onion, salt, olive oil, pine nuts, almost too much cayenne pepper, and more; steamed vegetables, drizzled with lemon. For dessert: buttery, flaky pastries in luxuriant profusion, tangy berry tarts, pockets filled with heavy and luscious creams, and cookies of various kinds, rich against the tongue.
• For breakfast: Freshly baked bread, lightly toasted, with jam to spread on it; cold fruit salad with mangoes, strawberries, melons, and curdled cream; or hot cereal with milk, sweetener and raspberries. For lunch: Tossed green salad with cress and a light herbal dressing; long noodles in a delicately spiced tomato sauce; oven fresh rolls and various types of soft cheeses. For dinner: Roasted chicken, the skin left on and crisped, with seasoned stuffing, and dressed with tender summer herbs and vegetables; leftover rolls and butter from lunch; mashed tubers and chicken gravy. For dessert: Miniature glazed fruit tarts with crimped pastry shells, in strawberry, raspberry, and apricot, topped with whipped cream and a drizzle of klah-cream.
• For breakfast: luscious eggy blintzes, layered with mild white dessert cheese and smothered with faintly tart beachberry sauce; citrus juice, tart with early spring fruit, serves to wash them down. For lunch: a stir-fry of tender wherry gobbets, blackened in a sauce of tangy fermented beans; long rivergrains accompany; and a peculiar sidedish of steamed water chestnuts, slivered carrots, and crescents of celery under butter weighs down the palate. For dinner: broiled eggplant, garlic, and crushed tomatoes, rolled in tortillas and set in puddles of light whitesauce, flavors mellowed and smoothed with white wine. For dessert: pastries and lots of 'em-flakey layered ones, plump doughnuts glistening with granulated sweetner, filled ones brimming with fruity cremes. Yum. Forget your diet.
• For breakfast: strips of smoked tunnelsnake meat for the first lucky customers; fresh sourdough bread, sharp on the tongue, its crust too chewy to eat delicately; spring greens, a salad of lettuce-when can't you find lettuce?-and sour-salty clover. For lunch: cunning triangular pastas, crimped into shapes like dragon wings, smothered with mellow yellow and white cheeses; plump red grapes. For dinner: herdbeast, roasted on a vertical spit, studded with garlic, and rubbed with cumin and cardamom; blanched brussel sprouts, drizzled with butter; abundant sourdough bread, served with whole cloves of roasted garlic. For dessert: klah Bundt cake, frosted with sweetener and crushed pecans.