Food and Wine and Cheating at Pictionary -- What's not to like?

We had our third potluck dinner party with four other couples last night. It was our turn to host, which is fine, because when you host you don't do the main course. This means you don't always get to cook with your own stuff in your own kitchen, but it also means (at least in my case) that you don't have to bust your ass cleaning and hiding piles of crap one floor up or down AND cook a main course at the same time.

I think it was my friend Janet's idea, and it was a really good one. The idea is to cook something fairly sophisticated that you've never cooked before, and we all take turns doing each course. It's a fun cooking experience, and a great night with friends, and since it's November and the last few weeks have been travel-intensive for Matt and single-parenting intensive for me I was really really looking forward to it. Not to mention this is the cleanest and clearest my counters have been in months, if not years. In all the pictures of people in the kitchen I just keep looking adoringly at my counters.

Within the first ten minutes, I learned that this was not the greatest group to use the word "fallacious" with.
This was our table. These are our friends. I took out the faces because I wasn't sure if they'd want to be on my blog, although some of them will have to if they're in pictures with me and I look good. My principles only extend so far.


This is Collette's fabulous duck prosciutto and avocado salad. She drove to Plantaganet to get the duck. While we were eating she said to her husband "oh, by the way, there are duck breasts in the freezer that you are not allowed to touch." He said "you know, if you hadn't told me, it wouldn't have been a problem." We all figure that some night there's going to be a showdown where Mark comes in late, wakes Collette up and gives her a choice between which breasts she'd prefer to remain untouched.

This is me with Collette, she of the fabulous duck salad and the upcoming Sophie's Choice.

This is Margot's absolutely amazing seared scallops on cauliflower puree and parsley pesto (it's almost as much fun to say as to eat). While she was getting this ready the political discussion got a little heated. We ended up having to look up 'socialism' and 'democracy' in the dictionary. Then I made Collette look up 'fallacious', hoping that would stop all the bad blow-job jokes. No such luck. I tried to lower the tension with a rousing game of cheese or font, which is much harder than it seems like it should be.

These are the people that had to arm-wrestle to decide who would have to go home and change. Either that or have a cheese or font-off.

This is Susanne with her boeuf bourguignon a la Julia Child, which was every bit as awesome as Meryl Streep was in Julie and Julia. (Susanne, I can put your face in if you want-- let me know).

After this we played Pictionary before dessert. Also, Michael showed me this article about the guy who wrote the book I reviewed a few days ago. This article kicks my book review's ass, which is okay because I don't think anybody read it (except maybe Susanne, which I wouldn't know, because she never comments, which is fine, it's a personal choice, it's not like I live or die by comments, well it sort of is because I'm a stay at home Mom but my kids are gone most of the day although not long enough that I could get an actual nine to five JOB or anything, so I'm alone a lot and it's always nice to feel like someone's listening, but you know, whatever). It also does a great job of describing an issue that spikes my blood pressure on a regular basis. I mean I haven't read it again while sober yet, but I'm pretty sure it totally rocks.

This is my boobs and my Chocolate Macadamia Cream Satin, which I have to say turned out marvellously despite my overbeating technical difficulties (the cake. Not my breasts).

It was a great night, slightly rancorous political discussions and repeated fellatio allusions and all. I plan to make a donation to the Ottawa Food Bank in reparation and gratitude, for my friends and nights like this.

(Also, Zarah, Alison, Amber, Susanne -- did you see the links? Do the links work? Are you proud of me for learning how to do the links? I'm beyond excited about the links. Who says you can't teach an old, tired, overly anxious, slightly needy, approval-seeking dog new tricks?)