Gobsmacked on Valentine's Day

OMG, you guys. The best thing ever happened to me on Valentine’s Day.  I know that was more than a month ago but bear with me. Ironically, this best-thing-ever had nothing to do with hearts, love, flowers, boys, diamonds, or anything like that. 

No. 

What happened was: I hacked a cupcake recipe and it WORKED.

Yeah. I’m totally, like, a rogue baker.

What. Up.

Maybe I should get a tattoo.

Ok, I’m being completely absurd but I’m not sure I can sufficiently express the feelings of accomplishment and joy that accompanied this particular endeavor. I want to put this on my resume.

I’m serious.

Here’s how it all went down.

Joy the Baker, one of my favorite cooking bloggers, posted a recipe for flourless Strawberry Cupcakes using coconut flour. Intrigued, I bought the cookbook featuring that very recipe.

I made the Strawberry Cupcakes, as directed. Only problem is the author of said cookbook is militantly anti-refined sugar and so uses agave nectar. Well, I’m not exactly pro-refined-anything but let me tell you something about agave: it is off the charts high in fructose. And guess whose belly doesn’t appreciate fructose?

That would be mine.

So first batch, I made by the book. Second batch, I subbed in granulated sugar and a little extra water.

You can see these specimens below. They were fine but a little odd-tasting and the strawberry flavor wasn't coming through as much as I'd hoped. 

Agave on the left, granulated cane sugar on the right.

Meh.

I felt I could do better.

I found a recipe on marthastewart.com (my go to for baking – her recipes always, always come out perfectly) for Strawberry Cupcakes that seemed to be popular among the commenters.

There were just a few problems:

The recipe made 34 cupcakes, which was about three times more than I needed.

The recipe used all-purpose flour and cake flour.

We’re still not totally clear on what my stomach issues are but one thing I know for sure is that common wheat is not my friend. I can’t eat it. Period. If I do, about an hour later, things get ugly. My stomach hurts something awful, my joints ache, and I become exhausted with this overwhelming feeling that I MUST go to bed IMMEDIATELY, at which point I literally cannot think of anything else.

The only thing I can liken this reaction to is:…

You know when you have a long day of day-drinking? You start at maybe 11am or so? And you’ve done a mediocre job drinking water in between? And around about 8 or 9pm, you just crash?

It’s kind of a little bit like that feeling. The feeling that you just HAVE TO go to bed. NOW. You stop talking to other people. You pass out face down with your clothes and makeup on.

Except, also, pretend someone is stabbing you in the gut. And that every movement of your limbs aches.

Those are just the immediate effects. The lingering gut effects sometimes last for a few days.  I’ll spare you the details.

Needless to say, I’m never willingly eating wheat again. The doc thinks it’s fair to say I have a wheat allergy.

Obviously, it’s been hard for me to admit to myself that I can’t eat wheat. Really hard. I’m sure this sounds petty, but I’m not lying when I say it’s been a bit of an emotional battle. I really love croissants. Always have. Always will. And there are times when all I want is a damn burrito. Just a normal, Chipotle burrito for lunch. Is that too much to ask?

Unfortunately, yes. I went through denial and I’m working on acceptance.  It’s getting better.

But it got a lot better on Valentine’s Day. February 14, 2012 will forever be the Day I Realized That All Was Not Lost in My Baking Future. That I could, and would continue to learn to, make delectable treats that even people with normal, non-angry digestive systems would enjoy.

So here’s what I did:

I took the Martha recipe, cut it in one-third, subbed weirdo flours (white spelt and coconut flour) for the normal all-purpose and cake business, tweaked the liquids and the leaveners, and guess what?

THE RESULT WAS DELICIOUS. I actually wish I had a better word than delicious because I say things are delicious all the time and even though I do eat a lot of delicious foods, these cupcakes…they were sublime.

I couldn’t believe it. I am still scarred by the time I was 12 and made a chocolate cake with olive oil because I didn’t understand the flavor the olive oil would impart vs. regular vegetable oil and my entire family refused to eat it. As much as I’d like to think I was being forward-thinking in my culinary ambitions, the truth was, I screwed up and learned that you can’t just substitute things in baking and expect it to work.

It was a good lesson.

And all the more reason why I was absolutely gobsmacked – GOBSMACKED! – by the result of these Strawberry Cupcakes.  

Let me be frank: I’m no cupcake expert. I don’t make cupcakes all the time. Cupcakes, while tasty, are not my “thing.” But I loved the idea of making cupcakes for my friends for the Valentine’s Party I was throwing, and Strawberry Cupcakes seemed just perfect.

And in the end, they were.

Kate's Perfect Strawberry Cupcakes with Strawberry "Ice Cream"  Frosting 

inspired by Martha Stewart Living and The Pastry Queen Christmas

1.  These cupcakes are not gluten-free, just wheat-free. I seem to be able to still tolerate spelt, and by God, I’m going to eat it for as long as I can. But spelt has gluten. Not a lot of gluten, but gluten nonetheless. So be warned.

and 2. It's called Strawberry "Ice Cream" frosting because - you guessed it - it tastes just like strawberry ice cream. Killer.

Makes and frosts 36 cupcakes 

(I'm giving you the full recipe and not the fuzzy-math version as I just made full batch last night for the people at work and the quantities are much, much more normal.)

Ingredients

Cupcakes:

2 3/4 cups white spelt flour (I used Bob’s Red Mill & measure using dip & sweep method)

3/4 cup coconut flour (same deal: used Bob’s and dip & sweep)
1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
8 ounces (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
2 1/4 cups sugar

3 large eggs

2 large egg whites
1 1/2 cups whole milk
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups very finely chopped strawberries

3-4 drops red food coloring, optional (you may want to add this as the fresh strawberries have the peculiar quality of turning the batter a bit blue-grayish)

Frosting:

2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature

8 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature

2 cups confectioner’s sugar

2 teaspoons Grand Marnier (or you can sub vanilla extract, in a pinch)

3-4 drops red food coloring (optional)

6-8 large strawberries, stemmed, hulled, and pureed

8 ounces mascarpone

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners. Whisk the flours, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. 

 

2. Cream butter and sugar with a mixer until light and fluffy. Add eggs, 1 at a time, followed by the egg yolk, beating after each addition. You may need to scrape down the bowl in between additions.
 

3. Reduce speed to low. Mix wet ingredients (milk and vanilla extract) in a bowl or pyrex liquid measurer. Add dry ingredients to butter mixture in 3 additions, alternating with wet ingredients and ending with dry.
 

4. Add strawberries and food coloring and mix until just combined. Scrape sides of bowl to be sure. 
 

5. Divide batter among muffin cups, filling each 2/3 full.

 

 

6. Bake cupcakes until testers inserted into centers come out clean, about 20 minutes. Let cool in tins on wire racks.
 

7. Once the cupcakes are completely cooled, make the frosting.  Combine the butter, cream cheese, and confectioner's sugar with a hand mixer on high speed until fluffy. Blend in Grand Marnier. Add the strawberry puree and mascarpone and mix on low to medium speed until incorporated. Warning: if you overbeat the mascarpone, you'll cause it to curdle! If you are nervous about this, put the hand mixer down and use a wooden spoon to combine the mascarpone with the frosting mixture.
 

8. Frost the cupcakes using a table knife or pastry bag fitted with a wide tip. Add a strawberry bit on top of each cupcake if you want.
 

Frosted cupcakes will keep in an airtight container in the refrigerator for 2-3 days. 

Sleep-ful in Seattle

I'm sitting here at Sea-Tac, waiting for my flight and thinking about what a lovely weekend I had with the Roberts clan and their pal Nick.

I learned a lot about myself this weekend, not least that I am totally capable of going to sleep at 9pm and waking up at 7am. Yeah, that's right. I can easily sleep TEN hours a night if you let me sleep in a cool cave surrounded by the BEST pajamas ever (just like these except mine are orange stripes with blue trim and yes, they are a child size, and yes, I am reminded of The Cat in the Hat everytime I wear them) and some very heavy blankets.

I think this is why there's coffee EVERYWHERE here.

Even Nalu was a good sleeper.

Visiting Chrissy and Will is one of my favorite things because they feed me. Also because I love them and their adorable kids, but if we're being honest... the feeding me is no small thing. Chrissy even makes tons of wheat-free treats. Including bread! And focaccia!! And cookies!!!

Focaccia. Tastes just like the wheat kind. Amazing.

Not to be outdone, Will is a true foodie. One after my own heart, really -- he does things like make his own ricotta.

Whole milk, citric acid, cheese salt. That's it.

Draining the curds.

Yeah. Like that.

Chrissy also makes an awesome wheat-free pizza crust.
And then dinner looks like this. Pancetta, spinach, ricotta. Awesome, awesome, awesome.

The kids' pizza was pretty good, too. I may have stolen a bite.

They're also really delightful, really wonderful friends. And they're about to move to Norway. Like I needed that kind of excuse to visit.

Sunday night was everyone's last night at home - Chrissy and the kids are sticking around but Will was off to Norway for a couple of weeks, lucky Nick was off to Utah for some skiing, and I, well, I was back to home and work. Let's be honest, I haven't spent much time in either place lately between focus groups, the holidays, jury duty, and this vacation.

Sigh.

It was time.

It was cold and wintry all weekend in Seattle. It actually snowed, and all four adults elected to abandon the plan to go out "in the city" in exchange for some lazy nights at home. This mostly involved drinking a bunch of wine (and beer, for the boys), eating really well and in far too great a quantity, and falling asleep around nine or nine-thirty after a couple of episodes of Eastbound and Down (which is really hilarious, although Chrissy would disagree).

For serious, though. How can you not love a show with this kind of exchange?


Terrence Cutler: There's something you need to know, Kenny. You're not the only athlete here at Jeff Davis. I happen to be training for a Triathlon right now. Doin' a lot of running, and cycling, swimming. Well, you know all about that. 

Kenny Powers: No. Actually, I don't. I do SPORTS, not try to be the best at exercising. 


To be fair to us adults, the kids get up at like 5:30am. Not like 5:30. Actually 5:30. In the am. That makes 9pm seem like a pretty reasonable bedtime. But still. No one was sleepless in Seattle, that is for sure.

Sunday night was another really cold winter day. We were going to take a ferry ride but all we could manage to do was walk a bit on the beach before considering how soon hypothermia might set in. Nick was super nice and got us all coffees (and the kids chocolate milk) which helped a lot although I was so cold I debated pouring the coffee over my head as a staying-warm maneuver. In the end, this seemed like a very short term solution to the problem so I abandoned that plan.

The cold weather and the wonderful local seafood inspired me to suggest cioppino for dinner. I adapted mine from this recipe.

Do not be daunted by the list of ingredients! This is really very easy to make.

Kate's North Beach Cioppino
Serves 6
 
Ingredients

The Broth
4 large garlic cloves, minced
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 shallots, finely chopped
1 medium fennel bulb, trimmed, cored, and finely chopped
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon dried oregano, crumbled
1/4-1/2 teaspoon dried hot red pepper flakes
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 cup olive oil
1 yellow or orange bell pepper, cut into 1/4-inch dice
2 tablespoons tomato paste
about half a bottle dry white wine (I used a relatively cheap Pinot Grigio)
1 (28- to 32-ounces) can diced plum tomatoes including juices
1 cup bottled clam juice
1 cup chicken broth


The Seafood
Use any combination of the following but aim for about 4-5 lbs total and no more than 4 different types. For this rendition, I used clams, mussels, mahi mahi, and shrimp. Without the crab, purists will claim this is technically not a "cioppino" but we had crab as an appetizer so it seemed a bit much to have it in the entree, too.


1 (1-pound) king crab leg, thawed if frozen, and hacked into 2 to 3 inch pieces
1 1/2 lb small (2-inch) hard-shelled clams such as littlenecks, scrubbed
1 lb mussels, scubbed and debearded
1 pound mahi mahi, cut into 1 1/2-inch pieces (you can also use other firm white fish - cod, halibut, etc.)
1 pound large shrimp (16 to 20), shelled (tails and bottom segment of shells left intact) and deveined
3/4 pound sea scallops, tough muscle removed from side of each if necessary


The Finishing Touch
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
3 tablespoons finely chopped fresh basil


Accompaniment: focaccia or baguettes


Directions

Cook garlic, onions, shallots, fennel, bay leaf, oregano, and red pepper flakes with salt and pepper in oil in an 8-quart heavy pot over moderate heat, stirring, until vegetables are softened, about 5 minutes. 

Stir in bell pepper and tomato paste and cook, stirring, 1 minute. Add wine and boil until reduced by about half, 5 to 6 minutes. Add tomatoes with their juice, clam juice, and broth and simmer, covered, 30 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. 

Add crab pieces and clams to stew and simmer, covered, until clams just open, 5 to 10 minutes, checking every minute after 5 minutes and transferring opened clams to a bowl with tongs or a slotted spoon. (Discard any unopened clams after 10 minutes.) Lightly season fish fillets, shrimp, and scallops with salt and add to stew, then simmer, covered, until just cooked through, about 5 minutes. Discard bay leaf, then return clams to pot and gently stir in parsley and basil. 

Serve cioppino immediately in large soup bowls. (We served ours over rice, too.)

If you can chop vegetables, you can make this. And you'll be glad you did. I wanted to drink the broth.

A few more notes from the weekend:

• The same night I cooked up the cioppino, we made the kids shrimp and rice, (plus some refried beans for Josie, who's a beans and rice kind of girl. Love it.) The shrimp for them was super simple: some Old Bay cooked in a little butter on the stove, then I threw in the shrimp for a couple of minutes and sauteed them until cooked. 

This is a delicious method for cooking shrimp in a flash. Worth a try.

• I saw this light fixture at Molbak's. It's super cute. Just what my dining room needs. And it was affordable. But why buy it when you can make it!? Chicken wire drum over a smaller burlap drum. Oh, how I love a textured, natural fabric. I am going to have to undertake this as a 2012 craft...

Winter Comfort Food

It's a little hard to wrap your head around winter fare when it feels like it's almost 70 degrees outside, which it did around 1pm today. Crazy. I love this climate. 

However, yesterday evening was truly wintry and I was craving some baked pasta. I had (still have) a bunch of roasted turkey breast that I made on Monday. On a whim, I picked up some smoked fontina at the grocery store. And then I invented this:

Kate's Baked Penne with Turkey, Arugula, and Smoked Fontina

Ingredients

1 1/3 cups dry penne pasta

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

3 garlic cloves, halved or 1 garlic clove, minced

1 15-ounce can tomatoes, pureed with their juices (I prefer to puree whole ones vs. buying pureed, but that's up to you.)

1/2 teaspoon dried thyme

1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

3ish cups arugula

1ish cup roast turkey (or chicken), chopped in 1/2-inch(ish) pieces

1 1/2 cups grated fontina, smoked or normal

Check out my freshly pureed tomatoes in my fancy new mini-prep, a gift from Sandy. Thank you, Sanderella. I love it!

Directions

1. Boil some water and get the pasta going. I used corn pasta for the first time which I LOVE - it's wheat free and one thousand times tastier than the rice pasta that I normally use. If you can't eat wheat or gluten or whatever, this stuff is worth seeking out. I hear it's the preferred format for gluten-free pasta in Italy and you have to believe those people know what they're talking about.

Corn pasta! Amazing! This stuff has restored my will to live.

2. Get the sauce going. If you can eat garlic, saute some garlic in the olive oil until it turns golden. If you can't eat garlic (i.e. me - so annoying!) saute the garlic clove halves in olive oil until golden, then remove the clove pieces. Proceed as normal.

3. Dump the tomato puree in the pan saute pan with the garlic/oil and add the thyme and oregano. Simmer, stirring occasionally, until the pasta is done. (Normally you would add salt here but I find the fontina to be quite salty, so prefer to leave it out.)

4. Crap! Turn on the oven! To 375! Now!! (I always forget to do this.)

5. When the pasta's done, turn off the burner on the sauce. Add the pasta and the turkey to the sauce. Toss to coat. 

6. Add the arugula (uncooked!). Toss to coat, trying to not spill too much of the arugula all over your stove. 

7. Stir in half of the fontina. Try to get it mixed throughout. I recommend using tongs for all the mixing procedures.

8. Put a little olive oil in your baking pan and spread it around with your fingertips until the pan is coated. (I used an enameled cast iron au gratin dish but if you don't have one of those, use a souffle casserole or just a regular 8x8 baking pan)

9. Dump the mix into the baking pan and sprinkle the remaining cheese on top. 

10. Bake until you hear sizzling coming from the pan and the cheese is all melty. That should be about 12 minutes. 

Eat!

A couple more winter cooking thoughts:

Roasted turnips are DELICIOUS. I'm serious. They don't taste like dirt or Siberia at all. They are sweet and juicy. Yes, you read that correctly. Trim and peel them before you cut them into quarters to roast with a little olive oil and salt. Try it!

I inagurated my new cast iron pan tonight by cooking up some mustard greens with bacon. 

Ain't she a beaut?

By the way, bacon is much easier to chop if it's frozen.

 

Clean and not slippery. And as much as I'd love to see Dr. McDreamy, er, McDermott, at the CPMC ER again, I'm really trying to adhere to the lesson I learned about slicing fatty room-temperature pork.

The recipe is in the style of Collard Greens Miniera, which I love. Try it. No boiling water required. The only two ingredients are bacon and greens. It's amazing. I threw a poached egg on top and called it dinner. Perfect. 

Tastes Remarkably Not Like Dirt

6 am conference call tomorrow notwithstanding, things are looking up. I discovered that I "misplanned" (sort of my fault, sort of our benefits provider's fault) my FSA which means Santa's bringing me new sunglasses. And new glasses. Maybe even two pairs of glasses. There's a lot of money left in that FSA and not many weeks left in the year. 

I picked out these sunglasses which look ridiculous and awesome. I love them. They are so glam and absurd. I think I partly love them because I am 100% sure that every boyfriend I've ever had would absolutely hate them. I mean, I am totally channeling my inner horsefly here, or maybe Harry Caray. Somehow, knowing that makes wearing these all the more delightful.

Leave it to me to pick out the most expensive frames in the store. The description on the website says these glasses "are for style makers with discerning taste and an appreciation for exquisite details and unmistakable beauty." All I can say is vision insurance is totally worth that $5 a month or whatever I pay.

I tried on some Warby Parkers as well and think I'm going to throw my bets in on these and these. 

And then I channeled my inner Polish peasant and made turnip soup.

Seems logical to me. 

As you might have surmised, the farm box presented me with about a pound and a half of white turnips, greens attached. The last time this happened, I tried to make turnip gratin. It was fine but retained way too much of that "fresh like dirt" taste turnips sometimes have. I thought it was worth trying something new.

What I learned in my recipe searching is that there are really not very many promising-sounding turnip recipes. The poor, unloved turnip.

It's really cold here in San Francisco. It's hat-gloves-scarf weather. It got down to at least 45 degrees today. I might have to turn on the radiators.

I love this climate. 

Tonight was perfect soup weather so I crossed my fingers and got to it. In the interest of full disclosure, I feel I must tell you that I hedged my bets by eating the remainder of the other night's Gruyere before I got started. You can't be too careful with your stomach and as I've been balancing on the precipice of cranky all day (see previous post), this seemed like no time to play chicken with my blood sugar. Plus, after all the glasses shopping was complete, it was quite late in the evening. 

Turnip Soup with Turnip Greens 

by Deborah Madison with Edward Espé Brown
The Greens Cookbooks

Yield: Serves Four to Six Ingredients THE STOCK None is needed for this soup (Why does the recipe list things you don't need? So odd.) THE SOUP 1 1/2 pounds small turnips (about 1 to 2 inches across), weighed without their greens Salt 5 tablespoons butter, in all 2 to 3 leeks, white parts only (about 8 ounces), sliced 6 branches thyme or 1/4 teaspoon dried thyme (If you use fresh thyme, take it off the stalk first. Trust me.) 4 cups milk White or black pepper About 2 to 3 cups turnip greens Fresh chopped thyme for garnish (optional) Preparation Peel the turnips (thickly, if they are large and mature) and slice them into rounds about 1/4 inch thick.  Peeling these suckers is tough. They are quite slippery. More than once, the turnip flew out of my hand while peeling. It reminded me of that escargot scene from Pretty Woman. Except I was wearing sweats instead of a fancy dress and no semi-handsome millionaire was in the vicinity. Let's discuss once again how much I love my mandoline. 1/4 slices. Perfect. Bring 3 quarts of water to a boil; then add 2 teaspoons salt and the turnips. Cover the pot and cook for 1 minute; then drain. Melt 3 tablespoons of the butter in a soup pot with 1/2 cup water. Add the leeks, the blanched turnips, the thyme, and 1 teaspoon salt. Stew them, covered, over medium-low heat for 5 minutes, and then add the milk.  See how I didn't remove the thyme from the branches? Don't do that! Otherwise you will be picking milky thyme stalks from your soup and trying to get the partly cooked leaves off. I should know.   Slowly heat it without bringing it to a boil, and cook, stirring occasionally, until the turnips are completely tender. (I think this took about 10 minutes.) Beginning slow heating. This failed rapidly. It boiled. It boiled over, actually. Oops. You can see the skin on the soup because I boiled it. More than once. It all went in the blender anyway, and I don't think the boiling made a big difference, just in case you try this and let the soup boil, too. Cool the soup briefly; then purée it in a blender. If necessary, thin it with additional milk or water. Season to taste with salt, if needed, and freshly ground pepper. Hot soup means taking that plug out of the blender lid and putting a dishtowel over the top, so steam can escape. Unless you want soup splattered all over your kitchen. I mean, if you're into that kind of thing... Sort through the turnip greens and remove any that are bruised or especially tough looking, and wash them.  Melt the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter (I only used one) in a pan, add the turnip greens, and cook them over medium heat until they are tender, about 5 to 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.  I deviated a bit from the recipe here. I chiffonnaded my greens before sauteeing, kind of like how I usually treat collard greens. It was a good call. Even though I only used one tablespoon of butter instead of the two called for, the greens were pretty greasy. I let them drain for a bit on a paper towel while I seasoned the blended soup. Remove the cooked greens to a cutting board and chop them, roughly or fine, as you prefer (or, chop them in advance like I did); then add them to the soup and serve. Or garnish with fresh chopped thyme.

 

This soup was surprisingly delicious which is good because I obviously have a lot of it in my fridge right now. Definitely very milky. If you do not like milk, you will not like this soup. I might consider replacing a cup of the milk with broth next time just for a little more depth of flavor. The turnips were not bitter at all, and the greens were so delicious I ate them all (even the ones I didn't need for garnish on this bowl), with my fingers, right off the paper towel. If you are ever presented with turnip greens, you should saute them. You will not be disappointed. 

Joy to the World, but Mostly to Me

Because I love Christmas

and Joy 

and Fun 

and Bite-Sized Foods, 

every year, I throw a holiday party. 

I ask guests to bring unwrapped toys, which get delivered to the San Francisco Fire Department's Annual Toy Drive post-party.

The thought of kids getting these toys simultaneously breaks and warms my heart. It feels like the least, the very least, that I can do in a season when I’m so continually reminded of how incredibly lucky I am, and how grateful I am (and should be) for everything in my life. 

Sigh. I've really got to start volunteering again. It's time. Well past, actually.

Anyway, that’s how the holiday party works. I invite friends over. I feed them and ply them with drinks. And in exchange, they bring toys. Lots and lots of toys.

I think it’s a pretty good deal.

Especially for me. It's possible that nothing makes me happier than feeding a big bunch of my favorite people. I'd be lying if I said this was a purely altruistic endeavor. 

Kate's "2011 Ploy to Meet a Firefighter" Holiday Party Menu

Nuts, Olives, Spiced Chickpeas (The chickpeas were an experiment and a fail. Oh well.)

Spicy Spinach Dip & Crudites & Crackers

Christmas Torta & Crackers (Torta = layered goat cheese, pesto, pureed sun-dried tomato)

  

Bacon Wrapped Dates

Steak & Horseradish Crostini 

Spicy Chicken Tortilla Cups (This empanada filling, in Tostitos Scoops, with melted pepperjack on top)

Peppermint Bark

Peanut Butter & Ganache Cookies (except instead of the "fudge", I did a basic ganache)

Ginger Sugar Cookies

Meyer Lemon Bars (Recipe forthcoming in another post, I promise)

Spiced Cider + Rum

Wine, Beer, Pellegrino

 

Of course, I didn't take pictures of any of the food. I totally forgot. Britta, thankfully, remembered and snapped a few shots of the party. 

It's a sign of a good party when I have to refresh the tray of clean wineglasses. Twice.

Desserts!

This party is always a great excuse to wear my grandmother's Christmas apron. Also, the pockets are super handy. 

Cocktail napkins that say funny things are sort of a family tradition. This started when my mom found some that said "I can't be overdrawn, I still have checks left." (It was the early 1980s.) Oh man, the old people laughed and laughed and laughed about those. I love these cocktail napkins but my favorite ones are actually from last year. They say "Merry Christmas to all my friends...except two." 

I need to drop the toys off at the fire station tomorrow. It will look a little sad to not have them all piled up under the tree. The big joke here is that the toy collection is merely a ploy on my part to meet a firefighter. 

Miracle on California Street?