Cooking Club: Sauced!

For this month's cooking club, Yumi hosted and the theme was "Sauced!" All of our courses would include or feature a sauce. Yumi was house-sitting, so we had our dinner at Molly's house. Look at that view! Emily and I were the helper cooks. We got our hands on a smoker (thanks, Uncle Tom!), so we smoked several courses.



Molly's dog Logan was our special guest. He is a good boy.



Who's a good boy??



Logan is a good boy!



Now, on to the food! Yumi smoked some salmon!



Emily made a cocktail with cranberry sauce and brandy. Cheers!



Yumi also smoked ribs, which she served with barbecue sauce! She paired the salmon with a yogurt dill sauce.



Emily smoked some roasted potatoes, which she served with a romesco sauce!



I made chilled asparagus with an orange balsamic reduction.



I also made crab poppers with a creamy horseradish dipping sauce!



YUM!! Saucy!



Check out that unicorn pegasus! Rowr!



We played Bowl of Nouns before dessert.



Dessert!!! We served ice cream sundaes, and each of us contributed a sauce. Yumi made strawberry sauce, Emily made hot fudge, and I made butterscotch sauce. This was delicious!!



What a saucy and delicious cooking club!

40th/75th Birthday Party!

This September, Dad turns 75 and I turn 40! Milestones! We decided to throw a big birthday party at Purple Chopstix to celebrate. Summer made this great cutout of us for people to pose in for pictures!



Billie and Joe!



Dad and Mom!



Me and Dad!



Yummmm, appetizers!



Summer taking a picture of me taking a picture of her!



Besties!



Billie and Cheryl!



Billie and Joe! We were doing a whisky tasting. Cheers!



Tracy and Tina made a round of Aperol spritzes! One of Michele's favorite drinks! Cheers, Michele!



Me and Ben!



Friends!!!



B.A.S.K. backwards!



Fun on the patio!






Then we had buffet! Mmm, curry, sweet potato peanut pasta, and stir fry!



Yum!



Derrick and Kayla!



Kayla and me!



Time for some unicorn pegasuses!



Lexi!



Billie!



Time for CAKE!!! Yay, the famous Purple Chopstix cake!!!



Gabe drew a unicorn pegasus on the cake. Didn't he do a GREAT job!? It looks just like I drew it!! Nailed it!



Time to make some birthday wishes!






Yay, friends and family!



Sissie taking a picture of me taking a picture of sissie!



Soooooooo goooooood.



Hello, friends! Summer brought a glitter stick so people were appropriately sparkly. Thoughtful!!



Sparkly Billie!



Jasper definitely approved of the cake.



What a wonderful way to celebrate our birthdays! Forties, here I come!

Pizza with Carl!

Carl is still visiting from China. He's a great cook, and is really good at making bagels from scratch! We were talking about pizza, and he makes that too (I haven't tried his). He was talking about different types of pizza he loves and we decided we had to have him over for my grilled pizza! Because I think it's the best!

Look at all those great shirts!



Mmm! I made pear, blue cheese and rosemary; and pepperoni, shiitake and basil. Carl loved them!



Carl brought some ume fruit liqueur from Japan.



We had it for dessert! Yum! It's always fun to spend time with Carl.