Derby Day Party!

(via Life)

I thought it would be fun to invite a few people over to watch the Derby this weekend, and it's expanded into quite a fun group! Here's my menu I'm planning on:

• Mint juleps & honeymoon punch
• Cheeseball, deviled eggs, bacon wrapped dates
• Dill and sweet corn salad
• Radish and grain salad
• Pulled pork & fried chicken (bought fried chicken - I'm not totally insane), with biscuits

I'm not worrying about sweet stuff since a few people have offered to bring desserts (though of course, I always have "emergency" candy on hand, just in case...).

We'll definitely plan on organizing the first betting game listed here, and possibly the second one, too - after that, the math gets confusing. Aaaand I really hope my Target is stocking these cute straws.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Game Day

I went to an entire football game! And it was fun, you guys! Mostly because the team we were cheering for won. My main problem with my budding sports fan-dom is that things regularly don't go your way. I know this is the deal - sometimes you win, sometimes you lose - but I'm really bad at that. I'm always threatening to jump ship when things look dire to root for the other guys.

After the game, Peter's parents and siblings all came to our house for dinner. We made cassoulet, and it was really good - perfect post-game food. My brother- and sister-in-law were so impressed. "This looks so good! You should take a picture and blog about this!" I claimed it would be terrible - a photo that would inspire absolutely no one to make it. No greens, lack of natural light, live sausages poking through! I'm showing you anyway (obviously).

Try not to crash Pinterest with this one, okay?!

P.S. My favorite players on the team.

Dinner Party Times Two

(Studio Oh tea towel)

Peter and I are hosting two large dinner parties over the weekend. One for eight on Friday night, and another for a different eight on Saturday night. Oh my!

For Friday, we've settled on cottage pie and a giant salad. On Saturday, we'll serve cassoulet and a giant salad. I'm going to make two homemade ice creams this week, and serve those at both. No matter how many people we have coming over for dinner, I always do the same basic thing for appetizers - a platter with cheese, salumi, nuts, olives, and crackers.

In a strange way, it feels almost easier to do them both back to back, buying and making everything times two and then swapping out the main dish! We'll see if I'm singing the same tune in the aftermath next week :)

Anybody hosting Thanksgiving next week? We get to be guests on Thanksgiving, but I feel like I'm getting my fix of cooking for a crowd over the weekend!

Thanksgiving decor

(1, 2, 3, 4)

I am hosting a bridal shower on Saturday for my sweet sister-in-law! It will be the first big party in our new house. I'm very excited, but the thought of having 20+ ladies in my living room has sent me into cleaning/crafting/rearranging overdrive (stay tuned for the big chair reveal coming up tomorrow!).

Anyways! I've been pinning cute ideas for her shower for weeks, and realized many of them would work equally well as Thanksgiving decor, so I thought I'd share a few of my favorites with you. You can find the full board here.

Anyone hosting Thanksgiving next week? Or taking on special crafts or decorating projects?!

Pumpkin report

Happy Monday to you! I hope everyone had a nice weekend. Peter and I realized we hadn't been home for a full weekend since the school year started, so we were long over due to hang out at home, cook and see friends (which is exactly what we did!).

The dinner and pumpkin carving on Friday night was a success! But let me tell you, carving pumpkins is a lot more work than I remember. The last time I did this, I was probably young enough for my parents to do the gross job of cleaning out the guts in the middle.

We went with the Halloween carved village (my ambition dropped as the glasses of wine increased). But you can see my sister-in-law made a pretty leaves pattern! And that happy/angry gentleman in the front is Patrick Bradley.

I hope they live to see Halloween!

Leaves or lace?

Tonight Peter's sisters and our soon-to-be brother-in-law are coming over for dinner and pumpkin carving! I'm going to be making this and this, if I can get my act together quickly this evening.

Martha Stewart has a fantastic pumpkin carving gallery (not that anyone's surprised by that!). These are a few of my favorites:

• Leaf carving
• Halloween haunted village
• Lace patterned
• Pierced openwork

I'm deciding between the leaves and the lace pattern. I'll try to be a good blogger and take a few pictures to share next week :) Have you carved your pumpkin yet?

Wishing you a very happy weekend!

Quite charming

(Waiting in the rain...)

A recurring theme in my stories these days seems to be that we go out in NYC, and then it pours!

Last night we headed to Prospect Park for the Decemberists concert. When we walked out of our apartment, it was just a few tiny drops. Nothing! On the bus, it started to get a little heavier. By the time we walked into the band shell, my hair was soaking wet and my shoes were squeaking.

We took cover under a tree and twenty minutes into the show, the sky cleared and a giant moon rose behind us. And then we got to hear lots of fun Decemberists' songs!

Those guys are quite charming. I'm always really surprised when I find myself liking music that's not featured on Jonathan Schwartz's American Songbook, but there it is, guys. Feeling slightly more hip than I did yesterday.

Crowd pleaser

My brain knows that I love a full social calendar, but I have to seriously fight my homebody tendencies to make this happen, especially in the winter. Movies and books and cooking can seem so easy, so effortless. This weekend, though, my brain totally won.

There was a game night, a museum visit, a clothing swap and a Super Bowl party. So many different kinds of fun, my brain was still churning with excitement around midnight last night.

*  *  * 

If you've got a gathering with friends on the calendar it in the near future, might I suggest this black bean and corn dip? I first had it at Peter's step-mother's house last spring, and I've made it half a dozen times since. It's such a crowd pleaser! 

Black bean and corn dip

You will need: 

2 cans black beans, drained and rinsed

1 bag frozen corn 

1/2 red onion, finely chopped

Zest and juice of one lime

Chopped cilantro

Throw first four ingredients into a bowl and stir together with a generous sprinkle of salt and pepper. Put chopped cilantro on top, and chopped avocado if you're feeling extra fancy. This is a great dish to make ahead and set out, since the frozen corn needs time to thaw a bit anyway. Enjoy!

Holiday party prep: Being a good guest

I'm not hosting a holiday party this year, but I am lucky enough to have a few on the calendar in the coming weeks!

Being a good party guest is cake compared to hosting, but there are still a few preparations that should be made. What to wear, what to bring...well, I guess that's about it in terms of prep work.  But of course, you also have to make sure you don't hog all the bubbly once you arrive. So easy in theory, so hard in reality.

Here's a little cheat sheet:

1. Crinkle Silk Tie Neck Shirt (LL Bean Signature)
2. NV Riondo Raboso Pink Prosecco, about $10 (Food & Wine)
3. Chocolate cheesecake candy cane bars (Food Network)
4. Kate Spade Women's Dazzle (Amazon)
5. Guy Wolff Paperwhite Kit (Restoration Hardware)

Gifted

Thus far, I haven't been super into the new online magazine trend. I applaud people for taking on this creative endeavor, and they can be fun to glance through, but for the most part, I feel like they are difficult to read and not very satisfying. I find myself constantly scrolling left to right, zooming in and out to read (usually silly and unnecessary) accompanying text.

The creators try too hard to translate strict magazine form onto the computer screen, when really it seems something in between a blog and printed form would work better.

Gifted is the closest to this ideal I've seen yet. Very readable text, full of inspiring, fun images, and it includes an absolutely amazing gift guide at the end (you know my weakness for those!). There are also lots of inspiration shots for pretty, simply wrapped gifts. One of my goals this holiday season is to make my packages more beautiful and festive.

I'll be returning to this often!

What do you guys think of online magazines? Am I being too critical? Are they a successful middle ground in the growing absence of printed magazines?

All images from Gifted.

Maira Kalman

Next time I have a party, I want it to look and feel like a Maira Kalman illustration. So lovely and festive! These make me happy.

Hope your week is off to nice start!

Cakes!

(Photo from Food and Wine)

Peter's birthday is one week from today. Every year around this time, I put together a list of yummy looking cakes, and he gets to pick one for me to make.  I just sent him this years list, and they all looked so good, I thought I'd share with you all, too.

1. Almond Macaroon Torte 
2. Caramel Walnut Upside Down Banana Cake 
3. Chocolate Espresso Cake
4. Chocolate Cake with Caramel-Coffee Mousse 
5. Gingerbread Cake with Quark Cheesecake
6. Toffee Almond Crunch Cake
7. Tres Lechese Cake with Dulce de Leche

Obviously, Peter is a big fan of almonds, caramel, and coffee!  I'll let you know which one he chooses.

P.S. In 2008, I made this one, and in 2009, this one.  I love cake, so much.

Escort cards

(www.marthastewartweddings.com)

There are lots of things about wedding planning that didn't really make sense to me until I started to do it.  How are you supposed to word the response cards?  Where are the affordable, quality musicians?  How long do ceremonies actually take?

(www.elizabethannedesigns.com)

Among the most confounding to me was escort cards.  Never mind the sleazy sounding name.  I just couldn't wrap my mind around how they worked. I've never been to a wedding that used them, and part of me wishes we could skip them all together. But dinner will be spaced out in three separate rooms at the house, and it seems too tricky to have people wandering around to seat themselves in those tight quarters.

(www.marthastewartweddings.com)

Now I get it, sort of.  I'm going to make a card for every guest, with their name and table number/name included.  Placed in alphabetical order, these should be easy to find, right?!

(www.elizabethannedesigns.com)

Anyone have any fun suggestions, or advice about what they've seen work well?

P.S. Happy Monday, ladies.  I think it's going to be a beautiful week!  Daylight savings makes me so excited.

New Google Search Tips

I love David Byrne. Peter and I talk about him so much that if either of us says, "David!" we know who the other is talking about.  


Because it's always David Byrne.


I was perusing his website the other day, as I sometimes do (when I want to visit him?), and I found this on his search page: 

New Google Search Tips:

• “It's always in the last place you look”
• “Try getting into the frame of mind you were in when you lost it. Think to yourself, where would I have put it?”
• “Tell yourself you never cared much for it anyway — then it will suddenly appear”
• “When you organized everything the other day you put it away where it belongs”
• “You are only imagining that you ever had it. It was never here to begin with”
• “The dog took it”
• “The search is more interesting than the answer”
• “The search IS the answer”

Funny, right?  Or is my deep, deep love blinding my impeccable sense of humor?  

And on another note:  David, please -- will you and your awesome back-up dancers come to our wedding and sing?  Because let me tell you.  The wedding band circuit is seriously lacking.  Lacking in talent.  Save us from this hell-ish search!

For your reading pleasure, here is a snippet of an actually response from a band we contacted: 

In addition, we work with several area dance callers and can provide as part of the evening festivities, a participatory square or contra dance that would be sure to please.  Our callers work with complete beginners teaching each dance and doing a walk-through before the actual dance starts with music. 

Oh WOW.  Partner folk dance lessons AT THE WEDDING.


Google is so not helping me out.  

The Decoration of Houses

On January 24, Edith Wharton was born.  She would have been a darling 148 years old. 

From the Writer's Almanac:

Edith spent much of her childhood in Europe, and she enjoyed writing, and published some of her poems. She completed a novella called Fast and Loose when she was 15. But when she was 17, it was time for her "coming out" in society. And when she was 23, she got married to a wealthy man named Edward Wharton.  With him, she could enjoy the lifestyle she loved, time to travel and time to write. But the marriage was an unhappy one. Edward did not understand his wife's literary or intellectual interests, and throughout their marriage he drank more and more. Edith was depressed, and so she focused even more on writing and publishing her first book, a book about architecture that she wrote with Ogden Codman Jr.: The Decoration of Houses (1898). 

Well, her marriage is certainly not a model for me, but I love her house. And that seemed as good a reason as any to love her and want to hold our wedding reception there. 

The house was in shambles a decade ago, having long served as a dormitory for the neighboring Shakespeare and Co. actors.  When the restoration team got to work, they decided that they wouldn't try to recreate the home as it would have looked during Wharton's time, but instead honor her avant-garde design sensibilities and decorate the house as she might have during modern times.  Hence the leopard carpet. 

The three rooms above are where we'll serve dinner at our reception (with most of the existing furniture replaced by dining tables). 

Oh, I get so excited looking at these photos!

Entertaining

Photo from Apartment Therapy

We are throwing a little Christmas party this year, despite my nervousness. I am so excited that a few friends from DC and my sister and her sweet boyfriend will be coming. It's still a long way off (NYC friends: mark your calendar for December 19th!), but I'm starting to look at different menu and entertaining ideas:

• Cranberry Caipirinha - we drank lots of caipirinha's in Brazil. It might be fun to do a holiday version of the drink for the party. Also, I'm kind of a sucker for pink drinks.
• White Crudites with Buttermilk Dip
• Classic Gougères - ever since I read about Molly Wizenberg's cocktail party fantasies in Bon Appetit, I've wanted to have one myself and serve these.
• Classic Cheese Plate
• Mini Meatballs with Yogurt-Dill Sauce
• Spicy, Sweet and Salty Rosemary Nuts
• Layered Peppermint Crunch Bark - these are so pretty, and so delicious.

Oh, I just love the holiday season.

Wine Tasting

Peter and I invited our families to Tanglewood over Labor Day weekend to see John and Bucky Pizzarelli at the Jazz Festival. We had so much yummy food -- Pam's famous potato salad with lots and lots of dill, very rare steaks, and Peter's favorite-of-all-time ameretti cookies from a bakery in Litchfield, CT.

Peter's dad Pete owns a lovely wine shop called The Bridge in New Milford, CT (You should visit!), and he nicely led a little wine tasting at our picnic. It was so fun. Pete always gives amazing recommendations, and he gets a special satisfaction out of finding really great bottles that are also really cheap. Below is a list from the Italian tasting we had that afternoon, with Pete's helpful descriptions:

• Saladini Falerio: clean, dry crisp wine made from a blend of three rather obscure white Italian varieties from the Marche region. $6.99 per bottle.
• Amerini Falerio: 100% Sangiovese from Umbria. More "Old World" in style. $5.99 per bottle.
• La Cacciatora Sangiovese: 100% Sangiovese from Publia. Bright red berries on the front of the palate, more "New World" in style. $7.99 per bottle.
• Priore Campotino Montepulciano: 100% montepulciano from Abruzzo. More weight than the other two Sangiovese's above, best food wine of the three reds. $9.99 per bottle.

Aren't those prices amazing?! You will love them, I just know it.

Parties

I'm afraid to throw a party. Not dinner parties, of course, but PARTY parties.

The first fear is, obviously, that no one will come. I will put up awesome decorations, and make themed cupcakes, and stock up on Two Buck Chuck. And then no one will show up. Peter and I will end up playing speed scrabble* until 9:45 PM when I put myself to bed.

My second fear is that everyone will come. They will drink and eat a lot, and until I run out of absolutely everything. They won't fit in the apartment and the baby that lives upstairs will scream and cry until everyone goes home. At 4:30 in the morning.

I'm not the only person with these fears, right? Please say no...

Anyways, this was a long way of saying that I saw these adorable party ideas on Williams Sonoma this morning, and now I am desperate to have an Oktoberfest party or a Halloween Open House.


But would anyone come?! Would they ever leave?!

*You play speed scrabble, right?!? Really fun. It would almost make you forget that no one came to your party.