This has the been the eatingest weekend in ages. I’m stuffed. We had lunch today at a semi-fancy buffet place in honor of Ander’s dad, who turned 80 this year. (the party was postponed a bit from his actual birthday because they were out of town then). The food was fabulous and I had to FORCIBLY restrain my tongue (I gave it a good talking-to! haha) from trying to run rampant and just keep eating until there was NO MORE. Best pork fillet with rosepepper gravy I’ve ever had. Best apple crumble pie with vanilla sauce I’ve ever had. That’s all I’m saying.
The crayfish party last night was a little subdued at first, but got rolling after the oversized plates of red mini-lobsters made their appearance. For myself and the kids, I had bought 2 packages of pre-peeled shrimp and crayfish tails, because those crayfish? Come with buglegs and eyes on. ICK
For an appetizer I made Amy’s Easy Artichoke Dip which was sinfully good and everyone ate it up, along with our welcome drink of champagne* mixed with fruit cocktail, which sounds a little white-trash but went over very well. Anders had put up a wooden frame and plastic to enclose the porch along with our party tent on the end and rented tables and chairs, so we had quite a cozy party room for the feast. We hung crayfish party sun lanterns and strings of red paper crayfish and balloons as well; very festive! Even with the cancellations we were 12 people: 7 adults, 5 children and 3 dogs, including our pal Chimay, who seemed glad to see us and came running in to be petted in turn by each of us.
Everyone brought their own crayfish and we got all the food ready and called the children to the table, which was groaning under the weight of:
4 huge heaping plates of crayfish, 1 large bowl of shrimp (unpeeled), 1 small bowl of peeled shrimp, 1 small bowl of peeled crayfish tails, 1 small bowl of crayfish sandwich spread, 1 large ground beef and bacon quiche, 1 large spinach and salmon quiche, 1 large pork, mushroom, red pepper and bernaise quiche (!), 6 kinds of cheese, 4 kinds of bread, mini-baguettes, and a monster bowl of salad, plus hotdogs for some of the kids. For dessert, I had made a spice bundt cake with confectioner’s glaze. Mums!
Thanks to brief_therapy we had a brand new snapsvisor sheet of songs no one had seen before, and songs were duly sung and snaps was duly drunken. drank. downed. Around 9 o’clock the wind suddenly picked up and we could see lightning flashes in the distance and hear thunder which grew steadily closer until finally arrived with a boom, whereupon it poured for 3 hours. But we didn’t care because we were quite cozy in our crayfish-and-sun-decorated party palace.
Very Weird Aftermath: After the last of the guests had left and we were picking things up and putting things to rights, and shooing the children off to pajamas and teeth-brushing, it was discovered that all 4 of our toothbrushes had disappeared. I always keep a pack of toothbrushes on hand for guest emergencies so we broke it open, but were too tired to put much thought into what might have happened to them. I just thought it was weird and left it at that.
So far during the course of the day, I have found Karin’s toothbrush in the bathroom wastepaper basket, Martin’s toothbrush in the bathtub, and Anders’ toothbrush in one of the laundry baskets. Mine is yet to be found. WTF?
*Pommac for the teetotalers 🙂