Someday

central air from home.howstuffworks.com

Someday, when I have central air conditioning, or at least a backyard, I'll have parties in the summer, too.

Strawberry smoothie

The other day I bought two pints of strawberries, cut off the tops and froze them. Tonight, after a long day of work, I put a large handful of them into the blender with some skim milk and sugar, blended it into super-tasty smoothie, put in Manhattan Melodrama, and relaxed. I love a good strawberry smoothie in the summer.

Pasanella place mats

I have been looking and looking for information and/or pictures of some witty napkins and place mats we have at the museum where I work, but this is the best I could get. Seriously, Mr. Pasanella, why play so hard to get?I can't remember what the napkins looked like, but the place mats were essentially a blueprint, with outlines and labels for each piece of the place setting. Not only do I find them aesthetically pleasing and amusing in their own right, I would totally use them if I ever started that finishing school for all of those clueless business people.

Shower favors

I knew I wouldn't have too much time for a complicated favor and most everybody I know enjoys a good M&M, so I decided to fill some small, plain white boxes with pink and green
M&Ms, wrap them up with green tissue, stick a pink tissue flower on top, and call it a day.

wrapped

unwrapped

ready to enjoy

To make the tissue flowers, cut out four larger circles, four smaller circles, attach them at the center (I sewed them), and fluff to your heart's content.

Lelong Lemon Bars

I wanted something fruity and square to go with the chocolate and almond round cookies, so I went with my favorite old lemon bar recipe. I have no idea where my mother got this one, but it's the one I grew up making. In graduate school they were christened Lelong Lemon bars after Lucien Lelong, subject of our student exhibition and husband of Natalie Paley, for whom my Paley Pecan Bars are named.

Lucien Lelong, the modern master himself

Lelong Lemon Bars

Crust:
1c butter
2c flour
1/2c powdered sugar
1/2 tsp salt
mix and pat into 9x13 pan and bake 15-20 minutes

Topping:
4 eggs
2c sugar
1/4c flour
1/4c lemon juice
1/2 tsp baking powder
Beat together, pour onto baked crust and bake 20-25 minutes or until set. Sprinkle with powdered sugar

I wanted these to be on the smaller side for the shower, but usually when I make them I double the crust.

Chocolate thumbprint cookies

I decided to make some chocolate thumbprints to go along with the other little desserts. I used another Martha Stewart recipe, but I added some cocoa to the dry ingredients so that the cookie would be chocolate as well as the filling.


Next time I'll use something other than my thumb to make the indentation. Something bigger, stronger, and less sensitive to heat.


Using butter instead of cream to make the ganache made it set nicely so it was perfect for filling in the indentations.


I had some leftover ground almonds from the macaroons so I dusted half of the thumbprints with them.

French Almond Macaroons

What finger food comes in green and pink and is super delicious? Why, a French macaroon of course! By which I mean the pretty, colorful little sandwich cookies, not those coconut whatsits. Anyway, I've been wanting to try these for a while and I decided to go with Martha Stewart's recipe because it looked the simplest.

Becca and Kendra mixing away

Becca, Kendra, and Tamara all lent a hand and we had a macaroon -baking party. Fortunately the recipe was indeed simple, though next time I think I might see if I can get the almonds even finer (we did our best) and take into account the fact that the almond will give them a beige cast. I kind of forgot about that so the color wasn't quite as vivid as I had planned, but it's all good.


I filled them with the swiss meringue buttercream listed with the recipe, but had to refrigerate it overnight. Sadly, the buttercream started to separate when I took it out of the fridge the next day and added the food coloring, but it wasn't so bad. Next time though, I'll do something a little different. What that will be, I haven't a clue, but I'm sure something will work out.

Sad buttercream, trying so hard to separate

I have since spoken to my friend Aaron, a pastry chef, on the subject and he recommends piping out the macaroons and letting them sit for a two or three hours before baking so I'll give that a go next time.

Pom Poms

Tamara made Martha Stewart's pom poms to brighten up the room. They are super easy to make and look fantastic.


I tried hanging the first few, but that didn't work so well. Luckily, Leslie is a bit taller. All we had on hand was packing tape and that stuck relatively well, though we did lose the big green one a few minutes into the party.

This is the best shot I got of the pom poms before the green monster fell.

Martha Stewart's version, I love how the pom pom napkin holders match the big hanging ones.

Invitations for Carly's shower

In keeping with the green and pink theme, I went to Kate's Paperie and bought scalloped pink cards for the invitation, plain cream cards for the guests to write down their favorite story about the bride, and then green envelopes. Printing the pink cards turned out to be more difficult than I'd anticipated, mostly because I had no idea what I was doing. Fortunately I know a professional and she was kind enough to lend me a hand. And by lend me a hand, I mean do them for me while I played with her puppy.

And yes, I know the picture is horribly out of focus. I actually did that on purpose to obscure the address and then I realized I should just smudge it out anyway, so now it's smudgy and out of focus. Lovely.

Carly's bridal shower

Carly and I were roommates when I first moved to New York and she's getting married next month so a few of us threw her a bridal shower this afternoon.

We wanted some nice, festive decorations and of course plenty of good things to eat

I thought all finger foods would be the most convenient seeing as we sure didn't have table space for everybody and I am not a fan of balancing a plate on one's lap. Leslie was in charge of the tea sandwiches and raspberry/mint lemonade (and she was kind enough to let us all take over her house), Sarah was over the crudite and fresh fruit, I was on dessert, favor and game detail, and Tamara took care of the pom poms.

I wanted a sort of theme, probably colors, to unify everything (more or less) and thinking of Carly brought to mind a blush pink, what with the ballet and the being Southern and, well, she wears lots of pink. I thought a nice green of a similar tone would complement it well. So, whenever we could, we incorporated the green and pink. I enjoyed the effect, but I should have known people would assume they were her wedding colors, which they are not.

So, that was the basic idea, and I was pleased by the result.