{"id":78,"date":"2015-05-28T22:53:24","date_gmt":"2015-05-28T22:53:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/magazine.hmc.edu\/spring-2015\/?p=78"},"modified":"2015-08-28T10:34:43","modified_gmt":"2015-08-28T17:34:43","slug":"feast-of-thrones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/magazine.hmc.edu\/spring-2015\/feast-of-thrones\/","title":{"rendered":"Feast of Thrones"},"content":{"rendered":"

RACHEL HOWDEN \u201908 REMEMBERS THE TIME SHE<\/strong> went shopping for snake meat.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was surprised at how expensive it was,\u201d she says, recalling her experience inside a specialty meat shop in Boston. \u201cAn entire rattlesnake was almost $300.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, sensibly, she bought only small chunks of snake to serve to her Sunday evening dinner guests.<\/p>\n

No one was startled at the meal. In fact, they expected nothing less. Howden, an engineering alumna, always added a bit of drama to her weekly Game of Thrones<\/em>-inspired feasts.<\/p>\n

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Rachel Howden \u201908 | Sansa\u2019s Favorite \u2013 Lemon Cakes!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

She started the tradition during the show\u2019s fourth season, shortly after she finished her PhD at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her boyfriend knew she enjoyed the Game of Thrones<\/em> stories and that she loved trying new recipes in the kitchen, so when her birthday rolled around, A Feast of Ice and Fire: The Official Game of Thrones Companion Cookbook<\/em> seemed like the perfect gift\u2014and it was. She spent all day on Sundays cooking as many as four main courses, five side dishes and two desserts. Friends brought the wine, beer or mead to pair with the feast each week.<\/p>\n

Howden baked, fried, roasted and broiled her way through more than half the book\u2019s recipes during the last season of GoT<\/em>, including the snake (\u201cfun to have on the table because it looked cool\u201d), a black chicken (\u201cit still had the head and legs attached\u201d) and rabbit stew (\u201cit was strange learning how to butcher a whole rabbit\u201d).<\/p>\n

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Snake with fiery mustard red wine sauce<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The amateur photographer also plays with angles and lighting before snapping shots of her handiwork to post on her food blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In her professional life, Howden uses her engineering degree at a California startup company called Ubiquitous Energy, which is developing the technology for transparent solar cells trademarked as ClearView Power. The technology may one day be used as an auxiliary power source for personal electronics and on windows for additional energy. She knew the company\u2019s founder at MIT, so when Ubiquitous Energy took root in the Bay Area, Howden packed her bags and moved back to the West Coast.<\/p>\n

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Hot Pie\u2019s Direwolf Bread for Arya<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

She\u2019s one of only five employees and spends much of her time in the lab fabricating devices and conducting experiments to optimize machinery based on the equipment\u2019s parameters. It\u2019s also her job to keep the lab up and running, so she must understand the customized systems in order to deal with any complications that arise.<\/p>\n

The job sometimes involves 12-hour days or longer. \u201cThat\u2019s the nature of a startup,\u201d she says. \u201cThings are less scheduled. I\u2019m never sure if I\u2019ll even have weekends off. So when I do have free time, I\u2019m ready with an idea of something I want to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

That includes sewing, hiking, crafting, reading and, of course, hosting Game of Thrones<\/em> parties. Even more fun for her, though, is international travel. She\u2019s visited approximately 40 countries during graduate school and conferences, and she strategically plans vacation days to coincide with business trips. So far, she\u2019s traveled in Asia, South America and Europe.<\/p>\n

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Finale feast<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI loved Croatia, where they did some filming for Game of Thrones<\/em>,\u201d Howden says. \u201cIt\u2019s a gorgeous place to go, right on the ocean.\u201d<\/p>\n

During her travels, she often collects beautiful or unusual serving pieces, which she puts to good use during the GoT<\/em> feasts, presenting the meals with flair. Of all the dishes she\u2019s cooked, the beef and bacon pie, complete with a woven bacon lattice top, was her favorite because of its taste and visual appeal.<\/p>\n

As for season five of GoT<\/em>, she hasn\u2019t decided whether she\u2019ll host the feasts again because she\u2019s still settling into the Bay Area. For the premier, though, she\u2019ll be visiting her sister in Arizona who \u201cdemanded we have a feast,\u201d Howden says. \u201cSo I\u2019m required to make at least one.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RACHEL HOWDEN \u201908 REMEMBERS THE TIME SHE went shopping for snake meat. \u201cI was surprised at how expensive it was,\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":446,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.hmc.edu\/spring-2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.hmc.edu\/spring-2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.hmc.edu\/spring-2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.hmc.edu\/spring-2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.hmc.edu\/spring-2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.hmc.edu\/spring-2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.hmc.edu\/spring-2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.hmc.edu\/spring-2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.hmc.edu\/spring-2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.hmc.edu\/spring-2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}