Last Sunday was Sean's mom's 50th birthday. The kids decided to throw her a surprise party, the planning for which began sometime in the summer. As the plan evolved, we debated a lot: lunch vs dinner, catered vs home-cooked, surprise vs not. After a lot of back-and-forth, we decided to cook the food ourselves for an intimate brunch at the home of a good family friend, Tom. Sean, Cait and I took the lead and planned out an elaborate menu for the 15 guests invited to our Sunday morning get together.
We spent all day the Friday before shopping for the party. The grocery list was two pages long, and ended up requiring us to purchase just about every form of dairy known to man: cream cheese, goat cheese, feta, whipping cream, sour cream, milk, butter, swiss, cheddar, colby jack, mozzarella...you get the idea. We went to three different grocery stores, in addition to braving the elite aisles of AJ's to pick out a lovely tiramisu cake. Then we spent all day on Saturday cooking in Cait's miniature kitchen. It was great fun.
On Sunday morning we had to get up and transport it all to Tom's house.Our menu was the following:
Quiche - 4 kinds: broccoli & cheddar, quiche lorraine, squash & mushroom, and spinach & mushroom. For me the highlight of these quiches was the discovery of freshly grated nutmeg, mmmm...
Bagels & cream cheese - we bought a dozen different kinds from the Bagelry on Campbell and then dressed up plain cream cheese to create a strawberry flavor with fresh berries and green onion and cucumber
Lox - we made a lox tray with smoked salmon, plain cream cheese, cucumber, tomatoes, lemons and capers
Feta with kalamata olives
Goat cheese with sundried tomatoes and fresh basil
Warm pita
Homemade hummus and roasted red and orange bell pepper
Baby croissants with a meat and cheese tray
Fresh veggie tray
Blueberry muffins
Fresh fruit kabobs with honey-ginger glaze
Gingerbread with powdered sugar
Pots d' creme - an amazing chocolate mousse-like concoction with dark chocolate, whipping cream, and egg yolk. Rich.
Tiramisu - store-bought, but still fantastic
Summer Sangria
Bloody Marys
Orange Juice
One of the main highlights of the party was the amazing gift that Sean made for his mother. Using Blurb books (thanks to Emery's recommendation!) he created a lovely book celebrating her life. It was a total surprise to Andrea. I was taking pictures and I think the following series of shots was awesome, as she opened the present and then looked through the book.
First: curious surprise
Next: teary shock
Finally: happy reminiscing
All in all I think it was a fabulous success. All family and friends in attendance, and -- if I may say ever so modestly -- some damn good food : )
