Falling Leaves Tablescape and Foodie Friday

Today I am linking up to Thursday Tablescapes and Foodie Friday and thank the hosts that sponsor these each week.  This week's tablescape is from a luncheon I attended yesterday.  The theme was Falling Leaves so there were beautiful colored leaves everywhere from the podium in the room

to the tables set for lunch.  These oversized leaves were purchased last year at Tai Pan Trading.  You can see that the leaves are each about 12-15" long.
The centerpieces on each table are large ceramic leaves from Wal Mart with large fat candles in shades of fall (also from Wal Mart).

Each candle was wrapped with wide ribbon embossed with leaves and tied with a gold metal leaf.  Each leaf plate with its candle and decorations was sitting on a large satin quilted leaf set in the center of each table.

 Most of the 10 decorations were extracted from a basket of fall leaves and things that was purchased at DI (this area's Goodwill equivalent) for $2.00! A great buy.

Here is what the table looked like before lunch was served.  At each place was a tan program with colored leaves on it too.  Also each place had a wonderful chocolate favor.

The mint chocolate truffle was hand made by a local woman chocolatier and was placed inside a filigreed chocolate basket which had a chocolate turkey emblem on the front of the basket. (Three wonderful chocolate delights in one)!  These were set on a real maple leaf that had been spray painted gold.

And if that was not enough, we were serenaded by professional violists from the Symphony!

 Now, to the food.  The salad was lovely mixed greens with blue cheese, raspberries and walnuts with Raspberry vinaigrette. (The walnuts were coated with something spicy.  They weren't sugared.)

 

The main course was the most delicious piece of broiled sesame salmon served with Miso, four beef tips on skewers, sticky rice with mushroom sauce, one baby carrot and two asparagus spears cooked to French perfection!  Dessert was every woman's dream:  Three petite portions of (1) chocolate cake with sauce, (2) creme brulee with raspberry sauce in the bottom of the ramekin, and (3) ginger tart filled with sour cream and blackberries!  I guess I was so excited about the dessert that I forgot to take any pictures of it.  I wish I had recipes to share but do not.  Sorry.

 Thanks for visiting me today.  Click here to see more tablescapes and here to see tempting food and recipes.

Julia Child Dinner Party-Part 3-Getting the table Ready

French Dinner Party
My Julia Child-inspired Dinner Party is Friday and today is the day to set the table and get the food in place for it. (I posted the menu Tuesday.) I chose a yellow French looking voile with blue flowers for the topper over a classic white tablecloth. Since Julia is all about the proper way to do things I thought it should be a very formal table. I used my Aunt Gladys' silver because she has soup spoons in her set. It is International sterling in a pattern called Spring Glory. The china is my wedding pattern of Noritake, Whitehall. It is white on white with a silver rim. The stemware is Syracuse and the blue glasses I purchased at HomeGoods. On each plate is a Chef's hat to be used as the placecard, with each guest's name on their hat. A very formal white and silver flower arrangement is the centerpiece. Pre-dinner drinks are served on the porch while the appetizer, a colorful layered terrine is plated.
A small buffet to the side is decorated with a chef hat on an antique marble cake plate, a copy of Julia's book, a lovely old ladle I purchased in the French countryside at a flea market. a French santon figure anda small blackboard with the words Bon Appetit written on it. There is just one thing to do now, I must get dressed. And most importantly, I must remember to wear my pearls--just like Julia!. Tomorrow I will tell the tales of the actual preparing of the food. To see more beautiful tables click here. Thank you Susan from Between Naps on the Porch for hosting.

My Beach Vacation

I am taking a break and vacationing in sunny (off and on in reality) California with a friend. Barbara has been on a liquid diet since November and has lost 47 pounds! So, I decided to go on it with her---for this week.

So, Here's the latest on the liquid diet/ beach vacation.
On our first day, Barbara and I equipped with our GPS system in her BMW set off to find this adorable English country Cottage shop we saw in a magazine. Following the directions from the GPS we were directed to enter a toll road 73 (north). I thought, OK it will be about $1.00. No, it was ($4.50). There was no one on the road. We thought, wow, we have a freeway all to ourselves. How did they know! It was great. We drove about 5 minutes on it then were directed to exit. Well, it was an expensive ride, but it was worth it. As we followed the directions voiced to us, we were then directed to go onto 73 (south) which I thought, "OK, they'll just let us back on, free since we just came from the other direction". Wrong! The toll officer did not even think we were funny when we tried to sweet talk him out of the $4.50 toll. So, we had to pay and were on the darn freeway a total of 5 more minutes before we had to exit. Then we found the Cottage. It wasn't hard to find. It had a billboard size sign on top of it's warehouse square building. Where were all the roses and cute curved-top garden gate that was in the magazine? Painted on the front door! Instead of finding a cute, small, quaint cottage, we found a huge, southwestern urban converted warehouse. Inside it was divided into rows of consignment country/gift clutter which when I began to look, made me tired. Since we were so famished upon arrival and seeing it would take a good deal of time to find anything of interest to us, we scrapped the whole thing, went across the street and had some wonderful Puerto Rican food! (But, following through with our liquid diet, we did have water!)

Stay tuned for the next update!