This year my birthday’s a Monday so we started the festivities off with a little party on Friday night. I tried to keep the menu simple – no hot appetizers, everything on the table basically at once, no replenishing. It worked pretty well but I didn’t take enough pictures. Any, really.
Like of my favorite thing, the tart filled with tomato jam and goat cheese. I got an in process picture, and then I ate the last piece for breakfast Saturday morning. It was gorgeous when it came out of the oven, trust me.
Here’s the menu
The fun thing about the veggies & dip platter was steamed Romano beans (that I bought at the Farmers Market, from Morren orchard) and purple bell peppers. And enough carrots for once – at the end of the night there was a handful of beans, a handful of the purple peppers, and one carrot strip left.
I started prepping things well in advance, like I made the tomato jam the Sunday before, and the pickled beets and corn salsa Monday. Besides what I used in the layered dip, there’re two jars of corn salsa in the downstairs fridge, too. I biked to the fancy deli and bought mortadella and salami for the cheese & charcuterie boards. There was a surprising amount to meat leftover. I think I’ll have to make Hailee Catalano’s mortadella breakfast sandwiches.
I forgot to put the fresh figs on the cheese boards. But I bought them kind of green, so I should be able to eat them up before they go bad.
The only thing I made too much of was the s’mores.
Emma took some pics of me & Jasper working on one of the cheeseboards, the one in the shape of Wisconsin, so I was putting WI cheeses on it. Jasper was having fizzy water in one of the enamel cups that Mark gave me for Christmas.
Al & Emma & Jasper gave me an apron that Jasper painted. It’s the nice kind where the straps are crossed and you just put it over your head and you don’t have to tie anything. I put it on and wore it for the rest of the party.
I said no presents so people gave me a lot of cards.
The one from Megan and John was the best. They also gave me the Lula Cafe cookbook. And some earrings with butterfly wings in them, and hand cream too.
The one from my neighbors up the street was the second best.
Gotta love a Julia quote #5 on this list.
Like I said my birthday’s a Monday and we started the festivities Friday, so we’ll continue. I’ll let you know what else happens. And apologies to anyone who I overlooked inviting to the Friday soiree – see you at the cookie party!