After a few weeks off, Family dinner started back up last night with a big crowd and a great meal. Since Ted & Johnnie spent the last couple weeks in Mexico and Jessie's birthday is on 5/5, the theme of the night was SEA-MEX (think tex mex, Seattle-style). The dining room table, and kid table, were decorated with new authentic mexican table cloths that made the night immediately festive.
First things first. The drink of the night was inspired by Johnnie's vacation drink - the mango margarita. While Ted perfected the recipe, we all enjoyed the taste of summer and the catch up conversations began. Turns out if you don't see this family for a few weeks, lots of stuff happens.
New jobs, vacation stories, summer plans and graduations were discussed. People have been busy and spring has been treating the family well. It feels as if we have come out of the clouds (pay no attention to the fact that it's currently grey and raining) and hit spring with new energy. Don't you just love when things start to fall in place!?!
We had a big crowd that included some first-timers. Kristy and Mike made their way over the pass to join us. They contributed Quincy asparagus (which we didn't get time to cook so I got some to take home, YES), a cooler of beer, a salad and chips & salsa. It's always exciting to have new blood at the table.
Courtney and Jordi also made it to their first family dinner and Jordi knew just how to win over the crowd. He made his way through the packed kitchen with a beautiful antipasti plate. He must be a good guy because rather than take the credit for the delicious appetizer, he let us know that his mom was responsible.
Aside from our newbies, we had the core: Ted, Johnnie, Grandpa Pres, Eddie, Jess, Mark, Charlie, Morgan, Chelsey and me. Matt was at dodgeball practice and couldn't make it, but it's ok because he's practicing for a big tourney taking place in LA in a couple weeks. I bet you didn't know you were friends with a National Top 10 Teams d-baller!?!
Ok, back to the SEA-MEX. Ted cooked us a great meal. We had a taco buffet that included brined and smoked dark meat chicken, smoked beef (sorry I didn't get a better description of this, but take my word for it - delicious), corn & flour tortillas, stewed beans, brown rice, avocado salad, green salad, corn chips and salsa and a bunch of different hot sauces.
As we settled around the two tables - we had 13 people, hence the kid table - we quickly realized these were going to be fork & knife tacos. Too much good stuff, tortilla blowout inevitable. Topics of conversation included the last weekend at Baker and the epic sledding hill built for the occasion, the Alaska cruise that's just around the corner, the info structure or lack thereof in Ethiopia, the jam-packed weekend Jenna has planned for her graduation, the phase out of calling people by nick names and the tricks of the trade for how to win at Emerald Downs.
Jessie topped the meal with two theme-inspired desserts. She made Flan and Peach Gelatina. Did I get that second one right? Either way, they were both tasty and the perfect sweet note to end on.
I'm sure there were a lot of other very important topics discussed, funny things that happened and mysteries solved, but the combo of cocktails from last night and not yet having any coffee is preventing me from recalling anything more.
There are some things you don't realize you enjoy so much. For me, family dinner is one of them. Pictures to come.
No comments:
Post a Comment