champagne, curry & cake

I had my first dinner party at my new house last friday. It was a fun night - i brought together a mix of people who mostly hadn't met -- 10 guests, plus my mum & step-dad. My mum was the real hero as she cooked the majority of the food. I baked another lemon-coconut cake (similar to the one i made for new year's but this time with blueberries). The menu was simple: champagne (to celebrate my new friends in seattle and my new home) and curry. Curry is a simplification -- we had chicken curry, a chick pea curry, spinach curry (aka palak paneer) and the two colonial veggie classics: cabbage fougard and brussel sprouts. I really like cabbage and brussel sprouts. We drank a lot of gewurztraminer wine too! Below are a couple of pictures from the party, there are more on flickr.



Guests dine away...



Click on the photo to go to the flickr page and see all the notes!



Oliver and Buddy warm up by the fire...





Outside of warming up my house, there is another great side effect of throwing a party: you have to clean house. Before my party, and my mum's arrival, my house was kinda a wreck. boxes everwhere, projects to be figured out and just a lot of things to be done. My mum and bill really helped out -- they broke down the empty boxes and helped me relocate or get rid of unneeded clutter. The result was that i finally got my house guest ready. My mum also helped me make a significant (if long-term temporary) upgrade to my dining room. Since i was having 10 guests, I knew i was going to need a dining table -- but i hadn't found one that i liked...and it's not something you can just go out and buy. So i clearly needed a temporary solution -- the result is one i love:



BEFORE:





AFTER:





How did this happen? Well, the key is the carpet. It sets the theme for the colors in my living room / dining room and adds a lot of warmth. I found the carpet online (on pottery barn, ahem) checked it out in the store and ordered it. The reality is that when you buy furniture online it takes time to arrive -- the carpet was actually backordered but it arrived days before my dinner party. I then picked up the tables -- actually two sets of DIY nesting tables -- from Ikea. The pillows are part of Target's valentine's day promotional home collection. The carpet was not cheap. The nesting tables were about $50 for the set of 3 (so $100 for the 2 sets) and the cushions were $15. That's basically $200 for a dining room set....and yes, it's "temporary" but i think it will be around for awhile...