Every year my Mom, Aunt, cousin, and various friends go to a flea market that raises money for Alzheimer's research, which for the past few years has been held not terribly far from my house so I invite everyone back to my house for lunch. Giving me much joy.
Here’s how my roundabout brain works…how things come together, even years later…
About 2 years ago I was invited to a caterer tasting at which was served little cups of lobster macaroni and cheese. So delicious! I had been looking for the right place to serve such a thing ever since. For some reason, on Thanksgiving 09 I had decided I would serve it for this après antiquing lunch. And now the day has arrived. Over the past few days I have been thinking of what to serve around it, oh and I must also say that the original was with real lobster and mine will be with kosher and therefore pretend lobster-one of the very few fake things I will ever allow in my life. We'll see how the tastes differ...I wanted the rest of lunch to be not at all fattening since the mac and cheese has so many calories. I decided on the very old-fashioned wedge of ice berg lettuce salad with my hand made dill roasted garlic ranch dressing. Also a number of years ago I was looking for pretty toothpicks, found a website that sold many different styles-of course got stuck with several hundred of them so I skewer a lot of garnishes. I am planning to skewer grape tomatoes to garnish the lettuce salad, though will probably serve them on the block of Himalayan salt which I really adore and tomatoes are always so much better with salt. Alas my first course.
The mac and cheese was delicious and very lobstery tasting. I used farfalle for the macaroni and stirred in the chopped fake lobster and of course the cheese sauce. I would like to do it again but with thyme added.
For Chanukah my aunt gave me a set of casserole dishes in pale blue. It was very sweet of her but what could I possibly do with blue casserole dishes-everything I wear and decorate with is black! I do wear and use color but always dark colors-navy, hunter green, cranberry, brown-those are the non-black colors in my life. I do admit that there a few brights I will wear/use turquoise, fuchsia but they are also deep dark colors in their own way. Baby blue is just not in my repertoire. I didn't know how to set the table... I talked to my mom and we came up with a palette of white and navy with pale blue accents. I brought my white dairy dishes up from the basement and put them on the table. Then I added clear Depression glass salad plates in a pattern called Cubist so lots of texture. I remembered my vintage 50's Tom Collins glasses had pale blue and gold stripes and others with pale blue and gold bubbles so added them. I tried to alternate the navy salad plates with the clear ones but they really didn't work with the pale blue stripes of the glasses so I alternated two different clear plate choices. I added vintage silverware that was my Grandmother's and was then faced with what napkins to use. As I say, I really don't have much blue to choose from. I took some pale blue jacquard napkins that I brought home from Paris out of a closet that I was saving as part of a gift for my cousin (who uses a lot of blue!). I dug through my other napkins and pulled out a swirly patterned choice of pale blues, greens, and turquoise-they did work together, though not my favorite. Nothing I could do. Years ago I was walking past a shop in Brooklyn and fell in love with a short wide vase, almost a bowl in deep blue and green stripes which seemed to work too. I filled it with silver ornaments and added, in vodka shot glasses, 3 on each side of the bowl, white tulips. Again, not my favorite table but ultimately, it really did work.
Most importantly, we all had a delicious time even though the flea market was a disappointment-very few vendors were there and what they were selling was unappealing. Apparently, last year, when the economy had been a disaster no one bought anything and the vendors didn't bother to come this year. As Jet’s fans the world over are saying-there is always next year…
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