Party memories!

 We set up tables in our new patio, not many as we needed standing room for the guests. This inaugural party was to celebrate the engagement of our son and his fiancee. The guests were their friends  and a few relatives.

 Our friend, Harvey made some wonderful food, like this caponata.

 Their friend Carole made them some delicious cupcakes.

 Harvey stuffed all of these pea pods with creamy cheese. Really pretty, right?

 This was a whirl of people going by. Everyone seemed to have a nice time, our son and NDIL enjoyed seeing people they hadn't seen in years, friends from childhood and college. 


We were happy we could host this, we were happy to meet their friends, and see friends of theirs whom we hadn't seen since they were very young. We're now adjusting to post-party life.

Sunday, we took a walk to a local place for brunch, and came upon this curious site on the next street. Today, when I mentioned it to a friend at the Farmer's Market, they said that it was someone joking about The Rapture. Oh, I get it! I didn't at the time. I thought it was an art installation. Silly moi!

In the kitchen afternoon!

Grand Kugel

 I went to Spanish meet-up this morning but our Science museum was closed. I waited for awhile in my car for others to arrive, and eventually, a small group of us headed to a coffee shop. It was packed but we managed to find 4 seats by the window and proceeded to converse en espanol.   We had such fun that it was noon before we knew it.

This afternoon, I'm so busy in the kitchen. I have to prepare lots of edibles. Even though she said not to bring anything, I'll be bringing something to our niece for their big Christmas morning gathering, then in the evening a big potluck dinner with friends. I've promised to bring my non-meat balls and some cheese spreads. I haven't much time, but this bit of waiting while the mixture sets for the neat balls before I brown them. We have a party to drop into this evening then we're off to see the film Black Swan. Busy social season.

Neat balls being mixed up, cheese for spread, etc.

  
 I'm got ingredients out to put up a pot of vegetable soup as part of Sunday's dinner with family members at our casa.
Back to work. No more time to dally. Busy busy in the kitchen! Glad I got my daily Mail Art done early. 

for veggie soup

The well used food processor!

Veggies and other food!

Last week we went up to Washington, DC to the Smithsonian craft show. It was so nice to see such high quality of crafts. I even got a pair of new earrings by Kathleen Dustin. See her work here. My earrings are in the fourth row down on the left.
We ate at a "meze" restaurant, which is like tapas but from Greece. The food was yummy. Here's a view of the sculpture out front and some of the delicious food.
This week, I picked up a nice basket full of veggies from my farm share. Everything is so fresh. I'm always tempted to take home more than I can eat, but stop myself knowing that next week, I'll get more good veggies.

Blog Action Day

The day is here, the day I had to decide what I'd post on my blog related to this year's theme: poverty. As I mentioned earlier, I'd been pondering this. I use the word ponder, rather than the word think, to give you some idea about the seriousness I felt about this subject. Well, today's newspaper gave me my focus. In the world news section, here was one headline "Financial crisis likely to hit world's poor hardest," dateline Geneva. "The world's poorest people will be hungrier...." I sell produce for my organic farmer friends during the growing season and like to cook, as you've seen from my photos and recipes. I love taking photos of the vegetables I sell.
When I read that there are people who don't have and won't have food, it's very disturbing to say the least. Okay, so that was national, but here's what was on the front page of my newspaper, "Demand for food assistance up 325%." The local foodbank can't keep up with the rise in recipients. Here are some numbers of recipients that give you the picture very clearly: 2007 - 12,359 children were recipients, in 2008 - 35,677 and an even bigger jump is in the elderly population were in 2007 4,764 elderly received food and in 2008 - 28,440. This is terrible. In America, not a faraway third world country, in America, in my community. This is more than terrible, this is appalling. America, the land of plenty! What can we do to help? This might be easier than some of the other problems with poverty....check out your local community needs for food. You can donate non-perishables. If you have the money to buy groceries and can buy an extra can of beans or bag of rice, do it and donate it, or, you can donate some money, even a small amount can buy a lot since foodbanks can sometimes get a truckload of free food but need money for fuel to get the delivery, or you can volunteer to bag groceries or deliver meals to the elderly. We can make a difference with this. Check your local needs, act locally, that's what I'm going to do.
photos by Mim Golub

Good eating....

Here are a few images of the good food we ate while on our trip to NJ/NYC. On our first night, we had Italian food (previously I showed you the lemon-mint granita dessert) at a restaurant where the pasta is all handmade. I had a pesto on little twisted pasta. It was so delicious. On Saturday, after seeing a documentary at IFC, Encounters at the End of the World by Werner Herzog
we stepped out into rain! A nice cool down. We tried to have dinner at one place but it wasn't open so we stopped at a place on West 10th for wine and appetizer. A yummy melted brie with honey and pine nuts. Perfectly scrumptious. I have to remember to make this at home. The food being prepared for dinner smelled so good that we ended up having dinner at this same little restaurant. A nice end to that day. On Sunday morning, we had brunch with our family in New Jersey. One of us decided to have the Napoleon...can you believe how this looks! It was an amazing breakfast dish. Okay, so maybe I'll make this at home some day, too.

After dinner at a Mexican restaurant on Sunday night, we went for dessert to Red Mango for REAL yogurt with toppings. I had green tea yogurt with dried cranberries and Chuck had vanilla yogurt with pineapples, strawberries and graham crackers crumbs. Whew!