Happy Hour Friday: Come By for a Drink

After blogging yesterday about creative fashion show invitations, I realized I'd never posted about the adorable vintage cocktail invitations my in-laws gave me for Christmas. My mother-in-law found two small packs of these in an antiques shop someplace:

The shot glass gives you a sense of scale - they're only about three inches wide. Aren't they adorable? One of the packs still had a price tag - 65 cents for ten invitations. 

After Christmas, I had big plans to have some new versions made for myself, which I'd then use all the time, whenever we were having people over for a couple of drinks. That, of course, never happened (and really, the postal service probably isn't the most efficient way to ask people if they want to come over the next day).

But even though they're languishing in my office, they're making me happy with their charming font and glamorous mid-century promise. Cheers!

Fashion Week Invites: So Inspiring

Back in my younger days, I used to devour every issue of Wallpaper - it made me feel oh so sophisticated. These days, I barely glance at the email newsletter before I delete it. I gave this week's more of a look, though, and I'm glad I did, since it included a link to this slideshow of interesting Fashion Week invitations.

If there's one thing I love, it's creative stationery.

Overall, I was surprised by how traditional most of the invitations were (though they were all very pretty).
Some of my favorites:

Louis Vuitton's luggage tag (useful!) and pretty script:

Prada printed their invitation on the inside of the envelope - cool.

And I love that purple:

Roger Viver's invitation fanned out to show cut-outs of various Paris landmarks,

plus a Roger Vivier shoe:

The front of Acne's invitation is clean, and I love the yellow:

But it's the comparison of the modern front and traditional back that really get me.

Plus, gorgeous blue-green:

If only we all sent pretty, interesting invitations more often. The world would be a happier place, don't you think?

Makes Me Feel Like Spring

March might be going out like a lion, but weeks of days in the 70s

have me in a permanently springtime mood.

You know what else has me in a springtime mood? This dress (Kate Spade):

And this scarf (Marni at H&M and under $20! So it's unlikely that you'll find any this side of eBay):

And this drink, the Paloma Brava, via Serious Eats. A whole bunch of citrus juices, plus some tequila and a little salt. Sounds (and looks) like springtime to me:

Tea Lights

Just cute enough? Or too much twee cuteness? I honestly can't decide:

Via Prepitude, a tumblr so full of things I like, I almost can't look at it.

Happy Hour Friday: Buy This Book

Entertaining Is Fun by Dorothy Draper. Originally published in 1941 (rereleased in 2004):

I'm in the middle of it right now and if you like entertaining, or vintage books, or anything vintage, really, you won't regret the purchase. Trust me.

More to follow.

Old School: Cornstarch Crepes Edition

The only food history of note today is this: today in 1841, an Englishman named Orlando Jones (no, not that Orlando Jones) patented cornstarch. Maybe the oddest bit of trivia ever?

Fortunately, it's also National Bavarian Crepes Day, so March 22nd is saved from only being known for cornstarch.

I guess.

St. Patrick's Day Recap

All of my childhood memories of St. Patrick's Day revolve around one thing: whether or not someone was going to force me to eat corned beef and cabbage. Fortunately, my (very Irish) grandmother is not a fan of the traditional dish, so I usually got out of it.

That was it, though. Otherwise, St. Patrick's Day was more of a grownup holiday. Not so anymore. Dixon has been celebrating - at school and at home - for the whole month of March. Behold, the leprachaun trap he and his friend Samara built:

Well, maybe it doesn't photograph that well. Trust me when I say that in person, it's impressive.

This year, my original plan was to throw a big party on St. Patrick's Day. Then, sometime around Kyle and Mary's shower, I realized I just couldn't do it. I didn't have it in me.

But we still had to do something. It was a Saturday, after all, and gorgeous out. Plus, St. Patrick's Day! It's like Cooper's Christmas.

So we called up a few friends, who came over and brought their kids. And beer - we've got a lot of beer here. Food-wise, this is what we ended up with:

Corned beef sandwiches - I definitely wasn't going to cook that in my house!

And this is how things looked after it got dark:

(I mostly included that picture because Dixon took it himself.)

Because I'm me, we had too much food, so on Sunday, we rebooted, with a few modifications:

And then we sent those leftovers to work with Cooper.

Overall, great weekend. Great weather + friends + food. And beer. Don't forget the beer.

Slate + Jello Shots

In his highly entertaining article about Jello shots (including a spot of NSA history!), Troy Patterson says:

Try a gin-and-tonic jello shot. Store-brand tonic will do the trick, but for the gin I recommend something distinctly floral, like Dorothy Parker American gin, which I started buying for existential reasons related to my self-conception as its target demographic.

I like Patterson's pop culture-related reviews, but his Drinks column has me convinced that if we met, we'd be total besties. I love marketing-related self awareness. Also, gin.

I do wonder, though, how long it took him to decide to end the column it with "Wiggle it, just a little bit" vs. "Wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle, yeah." That really could've gone either way.

Happy Hour Friday: Light Beer Tasting Party

At Christmastime, at the annual Carol & Crawl, an idea sparked. This year's C&C was a wine tasting party, focusing on pinot noirs. A few people wondered, why do we only taste wine? What about beer? What about light beer?

Fast forward a few months, to last weekend, when much of the same crowd found itself in Bill's newly redecorated (thanks to Alicia!) dining room, facing down a selection of 10 light beers. The job was simple: vote for your favorite.

It was a great party with good drinks (margaritas in addition to the beers) and great beer-drinking food (sausages, soft pretzels with mustard, chips and salsa and queso courtesy of Chili's). But most of all, it was kind of hilarious. Everyone took the task at hand somewhat seriously - I took notes! - but it was completely low key.

Even among our very unpretentious friends, wine tasting can get a little pretentious. How can't it? Even a few glasses in, you're swirling and sniffing and talking about tannins. With beer, especially light beer, well, it's not quite that involved.

And the winner? Well, that's the best part of the story. Bill and Jeff were responsible for pouring the beers into pitchers, far from our prying eyes. They had eight beers to pour (including two sets of Red Stripe Light) and they decided to throw in a couple of old standards, just because no one brought them. So they added Miller Lite to the batch. Just as they were about to add Coors Light, Jeff had an idea: why not mix a few beers, just to get a reaction.

So that was how pitcher #10 ended up as a combination of Miller Light, Red Stripe Light, Becks Light and Busch Light. And it won!

My only note about pitcher #10 was that it had "some flavor" - which really did set it apart from most of the other options. On its own, the Becks had a strange skunky smell, but mixed with the others, the smell was distinctive without seeming off. The Miller Lite and Red Stripe were just about flavorless, though actually, the Busch Light, with it's high level of carbonation, drew some praise.

Hilarious, though, we thought. Of course the beer that's not really a beer would be the big winner.

[Photo credit: Alicia Barger]

Old School Thursday: Ides of March with Dipping Sauce Edition

Today is, of course, the Ides of March - the day on which Julius Caesar was stabbed. But what else happened on this fateful day?

As it turns out, not much, except this: Today in 1980, McDonald's introduced the Chicken McNugget in the test market of Knoxville, Tennessee. And how did they test market? Well, they were rolled out to everyone in 1983 and almost 30 years later, we're still eating them. And though McDonald's doesn't publish the exact number sold each year, I feel pretty confident saying that we eat...a lot of them.

So there it is - Caesar and processed chicken. What a day.

Happy Hour Friday: Prohibition Chic

The March issue of Vogue is full of images like this:

It's 20s, 20s, 20s everywhere - both in the ads and in the editorial - and it all fits quite nicely with the upcoming release of Baz Luhrmann's Gatsby interpretation (the bottom right pic comes from the set).

No surprise, either - why wouldn't the 20s be hot? What other era combines romance and fun quite the same way? Between the parties, the art and the literature - not to mention the Paris obsession - it's always been my favorite period in American history.

This trend doesn't exactly catch me unawares - and here's where the happy hour tie-in comes in. Since I started writing regular restaurant reviews for the Sun, just a couple of months ago, I've already been to two restaurants focus specifically on Prohibition-era, or "classic," cocktails (Hersh's and Rye). At both places, the drinks were excellent.

At Rye, my Copperhead - a sweet and citrusy cocktail of blood orange and whiskey - even came in a totally 20s-vibe champagne saucer, which set off serious glassware envy on my end. How cute are these Kate Spade glasses:

On top of being more charming than imaginable, they're really quite practical - it's so much easier to sip a drink from a glass with wide mouth vs. a narrow little flute opening. They also lend themselves nicely to rimming the glass - the drinks at Rye are often rimmed with fruit-infused sugars.

Yes, I know that champagne flutes are designed to maximize bubbliness. But let's be honest here. When do I let my champagne linger in the glass long enough to go flat?

I don't. That's the answer. I don't.

So the question is, I suppose, how long will it be before I bring home a whole mess of champagne saucers? And when I do, where, exactly, am I going to store them? Suggestions welcome.

Old School Thursday: Sixer of Coke Edition

Happy National Peanut Cluster Day?
Beyond that, today is kind of a dud. Oh, the first 6-pack of Coke was introduced today in 1923, but that feels like small potatoes.

Although, a Coke and a peanut cluster does sound like a nice snack.

Tuesday Tables: Green!

It's March and March means Spring. Also, St. Patrick's Day! Either way, it's time to get green:

Apples!

Radishes!

Tulips!

So pretty and fresh, all three.

[Photo credits: Apples from Crystal Catering. Radishes from Real Girl's Kitchen. Tulip from Country Living.]

Photo Essay: The Swarts Baby Shower

In March of 2010, Cooper and I, along with Alicia, Mike and Bill, threw a Napa-themed wedding shower for Kyle and Mary. A week ago, not quite two years later, we threw another shower - this one for their baby-to-be, Eva Maxine ("Evie"), who's due in April.

Kyle is kind of freaking out at the prospect of having a daughter. Mary is much more serene.
And, of course, she looks fantastic:

The shower was on Saturday evening and the theme was "cocktails and mocktails." We created a little bellini bar, with pomegranate, cranberry and peach purees for mixing with prosecco or champagne - or ginger ale:

Big bellini bar lesson #1: Everyone drinks the pomegranate and peach. I dumped most of the cranberry juice after the party. Lesson #2: When the parents-to-be bring three bottles of Moet & Chandon, everyone will drink that before they drink the (much less fancy) prosecco.

We set up the bellinis and the regular bar at the front of our house, in the dining room. The red wine - a big hit called Snap Dragon- was a blend we tasted at the Elliott's Pour House wine club. And we picked up the fabric covering the bar for next to nothing at Debois Textiles. I have drawers full of fabric from Debois - all cute and all very inexpensive, making it perfect for parties. Alicia and I just folded the fabric carefully, hiding the rough edges, and layered it over cheap white tablecloths from Walmart. You'd never know that we actually use Dixon's dresser as a bar. He thinks it's hilarious.

Evie's bedroom is super girly, all pink and green, so we ran with those colors for the shower. Alicia bought bunches of green spider mums and pink gerbera daisies at Fresh Market and used low, rectangular vases to make tight arrangements that were simple, but very pretty and fun:

The shower started at 5 PM, so we made sure the food was heavy enough for dinner, but easy enough to eat, cocktail-party style. It also all fit into the color scheme - pink, green or some sort of neutral shade.

I found the recipe for these simple brie bites on Pinterest:

A couple of recipe comments: First, make sure when you start working with the puff pastry, it's thawed, but still very cold. It's much easier to deal with if it's not too thawed.

Also, instead of cutting the whole sheet of puff pastry into 24 pieces, then making 12 bites, just cut it into 12 rectangles and make the bites by folding the pastry over.

Finally, don't skimp on the cheese. I was worried about the brie seeping out, so I didn't use as much as I might have. That was a mistake - the brie flavor got lost in many of the bites. Which doesn't mean they were bad - puff pastry is delicious - but they weren't as good as they could've been.

This cashew and Marcona almond butter with crispy rosemary was inspired by this Food and Wine recipe for smoked almond butter. Necessity is the mother of invention - I couldn't find any smoked almonds on short notice.

I know that nut butter, even if it is homemade, seems like a childish dish for a cocktail party, but thanks to the rosemary, it was really pretty sophisticated. Also, it's much, much better with pears, apples or pita chips than it is with celery. It keeps well, too - I had some for lunch yesterday, on crackers with slices of pear.

Pinterest also inspired these caprese bites, which I made with marinated mozzarella, so they didn't need any sort of vinaigrette:

Cooper wasn't in love with this heart of palm dip (also from Food and Wine), but it was a big hit with most of the guests, even the ones who don't like heart of palm. (I know, right? Who doesn't like heart of palm?) The flavor was milder than heart of palm straight out of the jar, and the texture was light and airy. With pita chips, it was very, very easy to eat:

In honor of Mary's family (and also because it's delicious), we served her parents' neighbor's jalapeno jelly over cream cheese. Sadly, we ate it all, so I don't have any for future parties. It hits the exact right spot between sweet and spicy:

We put some of the heartier food next to the bar, on the dining room table, which was pushed into a corner and covered with more of our fabric from Debois:

I'd been looking for a reason to make these Ham Delights, little sandwiches of ham, cheese and an onion-mustard spread, ever since last October, when I read the recipe in Julia Reed's column for Taigan's online magazine Fetch. They sounded amazing and certainly did not disappoint:

They're not hard to make, either - though I have to admit, they're best when they're right out of the oven. At room temperature, they're OK, but warm, they're great.

Pinterest was also the source for this recipe for cucumber feta rolls (note: I ditched the olive in the recipe and instead used both red pepper and sundried tomatoes).

With my mandoline, they weren't terribly difficult to make and they really did look pretty. Plus, since I made them in the morning and they had time to set in the refrigerator, they held together nicely, even when someone bit into them:

I'd definitely make them again.

We served Mary's family's jalapeno jelly, so obviously we had to throw a little love Kyle's way, too. These Buffalo shrimp could not have been easier - they're just peeled shrimp (with the tails left on), marinated in Frank's Red Hot sauce and roasted in a 450 degree oven for about 5 minutes on pans that heated in the oven while it was preheating:

They were probably the biggest hit at the party - they disappeared very quickly.

I'm not much of a baker, which is why it's so lucky that Alicia is so good at making cupcakes. For the shower, she played on the grownup baby shower theme, making a peanut butter and jelly cupcake that was actually much more sophisticated than it sounds.

The cake was devil's food and the peanut butter was a creamy peanut butter cream.
The jelly? A ripe strawberry, right on top:

It was a great time. Tons to eat, tons to drink (at Kyle's request, we had a keg...because everyone knows baby showers are better with beer and really, when you have a reason to buy pink Solo cups, you should). And, most importantly, tons to celebrate. We can't wait to meet Little Miss Evie Swarts.

Old School Thursday: No Beer in Iceland? Edition

Not only is today National Peanut Butter Lover’s Day and National Fruit Compote Day, it’s also National Pig Day. And to that I say, that’ll do, pig. That’ll do.

A lot happened in food history today, all of which seems like it’s from the wrong era. Today in 1784, the first cooking school was opened in Great Britian, likely providing fodder for loads of “British cooking” jokes. Or maybe it’s just that we make those jokes today? Did anyone joke about food quality in the 18th century?

But that’s not the stuff that’s so notably out of whack with it’s time.

Fast-forward almost two centuries to 1970, when U.S. commercial whale hunting ended – but doesn’t it seem crazy that whale hunting and bell-bottoms existed in the U.S. at the same time? Even crazier, it was just in 1989 that a 75 year long Iceland ban on beer ended. Beer prohibition in 1989?

And on the other end of that spectrum, today in 1990, the Royal New Zealand Navy rum ration finally ended. New Zealand is a long way from Iceland in more ways than one, I guess.

So how to celebrate today? Maybe with some kind of crazy vintage recipe? Preferably with beer, especially if you’re Icelandic. Especially then.