A Very Contessa Party

Some friends of ours had a Barefoot Contessa party last week.  As Ina would say, “How fun is that?”  Our answer:  very!  We were all assigned a dish or two, and we let our tribe of wild children run wild while we compared cooking notes.  As we all arrived at the party, the power went out.  Some fierce Midwestern thunderstorms were rolling through town, and the house went dark and quiet.  Thankfully, our hosts were well supplied with candles and good cheer, and the remainder of the cooking was done on the grill.  Also, it doesn’t really get dark here until well into the evening in the summer, so we had plenty of natural light to see what we were doing and whose kid we might be stepping on.

This is how you'll find my 3-year-old every time we visit our hosts' house. They bring out the trains just for him.

My contribution was a fruit platter, which is really a cop-out, but I got a free pass because I brought a baby to pass around.  Have I mentioned how much we like these friends?  The food was fantastic, and the company even better.

The menu:

Fruit platter (The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook)
Herb-marinated pork tenderloin
Herbed basmati rice
Orange honey glazed carrots
Fresh corn salad (The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook)
Ginger cookies
Lemon yogurt cake 

 

 

I failed to take a photo before we dug in. You'll have to trust that this looked prettier at one time, and that it was all delicious.

My mouth is watering just thinking about the excellent food we enjoyed there.   Next time, I promise to do more than cut up fruit.

Herbed Rice, Fresh Corn Salad, Glazed Carrots (with ginger added, which was all kinds of awesome)

A festive table decoration. The candles not only provided light; they actually added a nice colonial feel to the whole night.

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