Dinner Parties

Now that work has finally come to an end, I've still been busy, albeit in a different way. Like always, my days in a week fill up with plans before Monday even begins, with errands to run for Sweden, ministry-related responsibilities, family dinners & coffee runs with friends (hence the picture of the terrible latte art above from Pies & Coffee). If it's not something, it's another. One thing I've found time to do though, is to host a bunch of dinner parties...!

The amount of work that goes into hosting dinner parties is tremendous, no doubt, but I enjoy every part of it. I love recipe-brainstorming the night before & grocery shopping in the morning, walking through empty aisles & fussing over the right cooking wine or freaking out over the fact that white plums aren't in season any more. I love the hours of preparation in the afternoon, & the kitchen becoming more & more of a frenzy as 7 o'clock draws near, when people start to stream in with drinks & dessert offerings & their beautiful cacophony of voices. I love it all. But why?

A big part of it definitely has to do with the fact that I simply love food & enjoy cooking, & it's undeniable that the feeling one gets from seeing other people enjoy the food you've cooked is great. & there's always that talk about the base human instinct to constantly feed people etc. At the end of the day though, it always boils down to the company. Great food & all its trimmings are well & good, but it always comes down to the people that embody the heart & soul of all dinner parties. It doesn't matter who comes: a close friend, an aunt, a whole horde of youths, or even a ragtag assortment of the above, & it really also doesn't matter if the food is fancy or not. I like the fact that lives can be shared over simple or elaborate fare, over a bowl of homemade pesto or over tender filet mignon with red wine dressing. It's the spirited debate at the antipasti course & the deep conversation over coffee & cake that all of us really enjoy. It's why I truly love dinner parties ;)



Now if only the dishes could magically wash themselves.






P.S. For helpful tips & recipes on how to host lovely dinner parties for any occasion, any of these books are brilliant:

1. How to Feed Your Friends with Relish by Joanna Weinberg - Incredibly practical & no nonsense.
2. Cucina of Le Marche by Fabio Trabocchi - Reinventing Italian cooking while keeping it simple.
3. The Vintage Tea Party Book by Angel Adoree - I love this book. Besides recipes, of course, it contains instructions on how to host the perfect tea/dinner party, from DIY decorations to sporting the right hairstyles. The recipes are slightly fancy & sometimes take a ridiculous amount of work, but if you've got all day, why not?

& just for good measure,

4. Where Shall We Go For Dinner? by Tamasin Day-Lewis - Currently reading & enjoying tremendously.

On turning 18.

I'll say, pretty fantastic! So thankful for all my wonderful friends and family for making this week and enjoyable one.

For now... I'll be needing plenty of snooze, breakfast in bed and the newest season of Mad Men to recuperate. I'm such a homebody it's not funny!

Post A-levels, at a glance

1. Bought a ukulele!
2. Went fishing and caught nothing
3. Brewerkz with the lit folks and being mean to glascow
4. Brewerkz again (will work for beer) for Dayna's birthday
5. Shopping for the first time in ages!
6. Reading alot
7. Giving tuition to my 9-year old cousin for the first time and having her correct me at a math sum. Talk about embarrasment!
8. Epic candle fights that ruined my newly-dyed hair on saturday
9. Watching too much korean drama (egad!)
10. The wonderful birthday surprise at Timbre yesterday. Pictures up soon!

one night only

Happy 18th Tiara! Hope we made a memorable celebration. Between bad stage moments, dayna's 'I'm not drunk' and one-too-many floral dresses, it was a good way to 'celebrate' the half-way mark for prelims as well :)

Till our next venture...

MAMBO NIGHT.

She left him shimmering

Search for your inner rockstar,
climb trees and make the world your own
Hey girl,
you make it seem so easy,
taking life and slipping it into her pocket,
so they march hand in hand.

Go and make sparks
fairy dust,
on cold spring grass
Tangle of clean-cut boys
oh and the girl with their summer dresses,
stockings and tattered jeans.

Hey,
what are you waiting for?

_____________________________________

Mondays are such a trail to get up to. So procrastination was a suitable companion on a very lazy weekend; two lit essays and a CSE outline went undone, plus delibrate effort to ignore upcoming math C.A. Also, the entire family had the ill-luck of catching the flu on Saturday night. I had worse luck because the flu turned out to be a 24-hour bug, which meant school as per usual today! Drats.

Still it hasn't been all dull.

Here's to good, clean wholesome fun to NLCC Family Day! Oh hey!

Kenny's birthday at Swensens and Clare's 18th Surprise party a little over a week ago. Stalling is not my best ability. Lead a rather bemused Clare around like an aimless sheep till she got all huffy about going to Marche two hours late and... hola! SURPRISE!

Happy bithday to Rach too, where Clare and I were almost late as we squeezed the massive cupcake balloon out of Clare's mom's van thingy and it popped anyway. Go mommy!


eating healthy veggies. Hey, friday is vegan day!

loved the lightning in the photos.

Somehow by the end of the night, we always have one of these. Why nat, why!

Had a pretty crazy journey on the circle line, actually, it almost felt like a journey across the earth. 18 people, lest restless younger youth who slid down empty MRT stair rails and hollered across ticketing booths.

Still, we made it! hurrah!


Day 10 of the doodle diary. Nicholas Glascow tore a page out 'by accident' he says, but I know its just to get back at me for ignoring him the whole lesson. Irritant! None the less, Math Prep Hours was pretty okay cause we listened to brit bands all night and sand while Kieran mercilessly dissed the Wombats, Passion Pit, Phoenix, the like. Sigh.

CHICAGO tomorrow! Have been waiting for this for months! Unfortch, it's a likely possibility that I'll be wearing school U to such a glam event, courtesy of music ministry rehearsals and lit evening meetings. Double yuck.

Ah Math C.A. Abhor JC life vehemently.

To end on a brighter note...

uMama Warm?! Seriously, what bizarre contraption and product name will they come up with next? Great way to put people off a marginally-sellable massage machine.