June Cooking Club: Mexican Fiesta!

It was my turn to host cooking club this month. For the theme, I chose Mexican Al Fresco Fresh! But it was in the high 90's outside this evening, so we decided to eat in the air conditioning instead of out on the deck.

I made grilled fish tacos and I made my own tortillas! Here I am rolling them out:



Emily and Valerie enjoy a round of beverages as Summer heads out to put the first course on the grill.



She made grilled jalepeno poppers! Dishing up:



They were KILLER! Super spicy, but bearable. And just delicious.



She also made a delicious pineapple cocktail!



Time for a toast!



A farewell toast to our beloved Suzanne, who has moved away from us and will not be able to participate in cooking club any longer (sob!). And also to welcome Emily, who will be our newest member! Cheers!



Time for the Guac-Off! We each submitted a guacamole, and then voted for our two favorites.



We tallied the votes, and I was the winner!! I made the recipe from Boudro's in San Antonio, where I had the best guacamole in my life in 2008. I've been meaning to try the recipe ever since, and boy am I glad that I did!



Here I am demonstrating the procedure of roasting hot peppers over an open flame. There is lots of crazy popping and crackling that occurs!









Mmm, next up! Yumi's gazpacho with balsamic drizzle. Cool and refreshing with a bit of zip!



Emily brought tamales! Look at those little packages of deliciousness!



Time to dish up the fish tacos! To go onto my fresh tortillas, there was grilled mahi-mahi and cabbage slaw.



To round things out, Valerie made a wonderful quinoa salad.



Ole!



After dinner, we played a new game, Partini. It was great! Here is Summer doing one of the challenges which involves a ball and cups.



Emily singing!



Summer miming!



And last up, dessert! Nancy made mexican brownies and margarita ice cream and BOY OH BOY, were they delicious.



It was an amazing cooking club and we were all STUFFED!

Congratulations, Vana!

Today we headed to Nelsonville to attend Vana's Hocking College nursing school graduation ceremony! Look, there she is! Graduating!!



YAY! So exciting. Time for a photo shoot! With Aunt Dae:



Vana and Dennis!



Moss and Joy!



Joe!



(and Moss)



Dae, Cheryl and Moss.



Joe's parents! (and Moss)



Ben and I!



Family!



Marseille!



Group photo!



After the ceremony, Vana and Joe had a cookout to celebrate. Cheryl made this gorgeous cake:



Vana the RN!!



Happy!






Cheryl also made a batch of cupcakes. They were all SUPER delicious.



Dennis and Vana.



Cutting the cake!



Mmm, cake with coffee ice cream. Such a delicious way to celebrate Vana's accomplishment. We're all super proud of you, Vana V! Congratulations!

A Visit from Jason featuring Magic Middles

Jason came back to Athens for a visit this week! Last night we stopped by Jackie-O's to join my coworkers for a happy hour.



And then tonight we had a party at my parents' house. My dad decorated with balloons.



Look! He made a balloon that looks like Jason! Amazing.



Dinner time!



You might think that this is an ordinary hamburger, but you would be WRONG.



It is a Magic Middle! There is MAGIC inside!



Well, the stuff in the middle is actually blue cheese, but it TASTES magical. Here is Jason showing off his magic.



It was Jason's birthday week, so we got to have cake!



Mom made the Fantastic Lemon Cake.



Singing Happy Birthday.



Time to make a wish!



Happy birthday, Jason!

I WOULD LIKE A PIZZA!

Tonight we had Mom and Dad over for grilled pizzas. I made four different kinds! Pepperoni, black olive, banana pepper and onion; sausage, green pepper and onion; tomato, goat cheese and basil; pear and gorgonzola. All of them were great. I think the pear/gorgonzola was the winner though.







After dinner, we refreshed Mom and Dad on how to play euchre. They hadn't played in like seventeen years! It came back to them SUPER fast though. I'm so excited that they're into playing again because it's always great to have people to play with.

Now I want to tell a story about pizza.

Back in March, I was over at Mom and Dad's house. I was ordering pizzas for us to have for dinner, and I called Avalanche Pizza. I called from my mom's land line, and they said, "Will this be going to Briarwood Avenue?" and I said "uh, no!?" and gave them my mom's address.

After I got off the phone, I was like, "HOW DID THEY KNOW IT WAS ME CALLING??? AND WHERE I LIVE???" And got all weirded out like, do they have VOICE RECOGNITION SOFTWARE???! I had to call back and ask, it was just too weird. The girl who took my order laughed and said that probably whoever ordered from Mom's house last night had wanted the pizzas delivered to my house (totally probable).

Anyway, I was telling Billie this story at Jackie O's a couple of days later, and by that point a couple of other weird coincidences had happened, and she was like, "What if the universe can HEAR YOU?" and so I looked up into the sky and shouted "I WOULD LIKE A PIZZA!" And then like two minutes later, one of the waitresses came up to us and said, "Did you guys order this pizza?" And I was like:



Then she realized that it was actually for a different table. DARN. But for one moment, I actually thought that the universe was listening.

Memorial Day Pool Party

Today was our first time going out to Summer & J's pool this year. That means Summertime has officially begun! YAY!



Poolyball!



Lori was telling Summer and I about these drinks that she had in Brazil, Caipirinhas. They are made with sugar, crushed ice, lime juice, and this liquor called Cachaca. Lori was saying that when she gets her hands on another bottle of Cachaca, that she'd love to make some for us. She wasn't sure if you could get it in the U.S. or not, she'd gotten her last bottle in Brazil.

Summer said that sounded oddly familiar, and had a hunch that she might possibly HAVE a bottle of Cachaca in her liquor cabinet! We went in to see, and sure enough, she did. Summer definitely wins the prize for having the most thoroughly and impressively stocked liquor cabinet ever!!



So obviously we had to make some! They were delicious.



We played some more cornhole, rounding out this amazing three-day weekend with FOUR days of cornhole in a row!



Here is a picture of a bag that Summer threw, as it blasts into the hole. CORNHOLE!!!



Summer and Lori!





Happy Memorial Day, everybody! Here's to a fantastic summer! I hope it's a hot one!