Well I must admit that the team duo of my mother and I really paid off las night! We were asked to be the caterers for a dinner of 12 this evening. Although I wouldn’t necessarily call ourselves caterers, they could not have chosen a better team than the two of us. My mom and I tend to clash a variety of things, but I must say that we are some damn good cooks and bakers (if I do say so myself). And now we both know that we can at least plan, prep, serve, and clean for at least 12 people, if not more! Now many of you are probably more concerned about the place settings and the meal itself. Do not worry, and fear no longer! The hostess (family friend of ours) and one of her friends did all of the decorations and place settings of las night’s party! Check out the photos below! I was quite IMPRESSED! The table was especially festive for the holidays!
Now onto the meal! My mom and I have become quite fond of this particular meal, so we just knew exactly what we’d be serving tonight! The full meal, three courses, is as follows:
Un
mandarin orange salad
homemade dinner rolls
onion & poppy seed bialy
Deux
baked parmesan crusted chicken
lemon chardonnay cream sauce
white cheddar mashed potatoes
roasted broccoli with lemon & parmesan
Trois
homemade raspberry cheesecake
fresh apple crisp
vanilla bean ice cream
And here is the menu that I made just to prove it! The picture below is also a great action shot of my mom hard at work! Haha I sure hope she doesn’t kill me after that one!
Everything just went so smoothly tonight (I don’t know if smoothly is even a word, but at this point, I could care less!) I am absolutely exhausted, but nevertheless, I had a great time. And the guests enjoyed every single bite of our dinner! When you are able to witness clean plates and happy people, that is when you know that you have succeeded.
Last night, as always, I thought about Julia. How I would’ve loved for her to be sitting there in the kitchen, giving us advice and pointers. She will always be my inspiration, no matter where I am or what I’m doing, Julia will be the fire within me to keep going, to keep trying something different, and not giving a damn as to what anyone else says. She’s my hero (other than my mom and grandma of course). I definitely inherited the good cooking skills from my mom’s side of the family, as I am constantly finding myself more and more like my grandmother. I will have to have a post dedicated to her one of these days, especially since she reads every single one on here!
I want to end my post a little differently than I have before. More often than not, I tend to take things for granted (as I believe we all do). I truly want to thank God for this ability to cook and bake and kick ass. While the third description is really just for humor’s sake to make y’alls laugh, I am remaining quite serious on the first two. I am more and more grateful of this gift that I have been given. I love food. Lordy Lord, I love food. It never fails to let you down (unless you burn something). And food always makes people happy. If you’ve gotten to a certain point like me, you’ll even start dreaming about food. You’ll even wake up in the middle of the night after having dreamt about food and be starving! Believe me, it has happened to me plenty of times before! In all honesty, I will be thanking the Lord every day from now on for this generous gift of being able to cook. It is something so versatile, so great that there are oftentimes no words to even describe how I feel when I cook. And I know the women in my life love it when I cook for them too!
So thank you God for this ability to work some magic with ingredients tonight (and every single day) because we might have served McDonald’s otherwise.
And that is today’s thought.
–pg
Yes, this is real life. 