Today, I went to Whole Foods and bought the things I would not be able to get at my supermarket and then bought flowers at the really good Korean market flower stall. All in shades of orange, burnt orange, and yellow-my table is going to be all the shades of fall as my china is a green based pattern but my invitations were in the brown and beige family. I'll put up a picture of them over the weekend as the invitations were particularly beautiful. I have those brown and beige feather balls I brought back from Paris that mention previously and I really want to use them on the table, it was they who inspired the invitations. I do have brown dishes but only 8 and I have 13 coming to the house so I must use my Royal Dalton. Don't you feel sorry for me?? :)
Tonight, my husband and I moved the dining room table into the kitchen giving me extra counter space (no matter how big or small a kitchen you have when you are entertaining you never have enough counters!) Our table is an ingenious one that folds down and can be put against a wall. But by doing that I block access to the hutch that holds all my gold and green Depression glass salad plates and coffee cups so I must decide on which to use tonight before the table get put there. Once I start filling up the table I won't be able to move it out of the way.
I took the turkey and the duck out of
the freezer and made a shopping list tonight so tomorrow's pilgrimage to the supermarket can go smoothly. At 5am one does't really wish for any bumps but the vegetables arrive at 4 and get unpacked and there is no one else on the road or in the store. Just the way I like it! I can arrive in 7 minutes instead of 15 and I can zip through the store getting everything in about 1/2 an hour and don't have to wait on line to get out.
Wednesday I will make the gnocchi, the chocolate sauce and cake, the walnut cake and set the table. Depending on how long all that takes I will start making more and more things. I want to try to make the mushroom soup appetizer on Wednesday as well and that should be fine. My cleaning lady is coming at 8 on Thursday morning and I really want to have all the most messy things done before she gets here.
Have I mentioned my menu? Wild mushroom soup; roast turkey; roast duck; sweet potato gnocchi with a sage and chestnut gravy, broccoli with smoked paprika and toasted almonds, salad of orange sections, celery root and celery with a citrus dressing. Then for dessert chocolate cake and a walnut cake. For pre-prandial cocktails I am crushing apples in the food processor, putting them into a cocktail shaker adding apple cider, Maker's Mark bourbon, ice-shaking, straining into a vintage Tom Collins glass and topping off with seltzer that we'll make in my seltzer maker. I'm toasting pecans and skewering them to use as a garnish and I'm rimming the glasses in toasted pulverized pecans. I want to try to figure out a way to get an apple chunk into the garnish and I'm sure I'll have a bowl of lemon water to keep them in, to prevent them from browning and skewer them as we make the drinks. Maybe I could roast or sautee them. I'll think about during the day. I wanted to sneak some ginger into them but my favorite friend didn't love the idea so pecans it is. Maybe next time ginger.
I set the table last as it gives me the most joy. More about that in the next few days.
A bientot my friends, I'm going to bed. And will dream of gnocchi dancing in my head...
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