On the evening of June 12th, six incredible women joined me for dinner and a lively discussion of the book 'Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine.'
It was the fulfillment of a long held dream, one I finally acted upon after seeing a blog post this Spring by Nell Hills. In the post she decorated a table for a book club dinner and one glance was all it took to spur me into action. You can see her post & table here.
Hosting the book club combined so many of my favorite things ~ books, friends, the garden and entertaining.
I'm not sure where I got my love of entertaining? I didn't learn it from my Mother or really any other family member. Over the years I've just found joy in it and in the whole process ~ from planning the meal, to setting the table & adding all the little details that make guests feel special & something they'll remember.
I don't do it often, only a handful of times a year, but I try to treat each event with the best attention & care I can.
For the book club dinner, I selected our book and sent out invitations about two months prior so that everyone had plenty of time to get and read the book.
A couple days before the dinner, I started working on my table, making the placecards, collecting my ingredients, etc.
The day of, I was out in the garden early in the morning ~ clipping the roses, hydrangeas & dogwood branches for the centerpiece.
Arranging the centerpiece is one of my favorite parts of hosting a dinner or party.
I think because I get to include the garden into the process as well?
After I'm satisfied with the table, I move on to the food.
We started the meal with a mini Basil Parmesan cheesecake topped with tomato jam & a sprig of fresh basil. Recipe here.
Afterwards we moved on to the meal itself which consisted of Pistachio crusted Salmon:
Not the best picture ~ I think it was the last one I took before the dinner commenced.
Cold Roast Beef & Asparagus wraps. I don't have a link for the recipe, I got it from 'The Gathering of Friends Cookbook, Volume Three.' I love this cookbook series and own several volumes. Besides recipes, the cookbooks include tablescapes which are always inspiring and they make it easy to replicate any one of their themes if you need some help or are in a hurry.
The wraps are very simple to make. Just roast the asparagus, spread some softened cream cheese on a thin slice of roast beef, add one asparagus spear and roll up. Chill until ready to serve.
Don't make the mistake I did & tell the deli to slice it "thin" ~ they pretty much gave me shaved roast beef which made the process more difficult than it should have been.
Above & below: Cauliflower, Corn, Cucumber Salad.
Plus Roasted Beet & Carrot Salad ~ this is served with Arugula & roasted Walnuts ~ Yum!
Sorry about the photo, another bad one & doesn't do it justice AT ALL.
My next favorite part of hosting ~ the desserts!
This year, I'd been noticing a trend toward serving petite desserts. It makes a lot of sense. Satisfying the sweet tooth but in a more (healthy) reasonable size.
I decided to go with that theme & incorporated two options in my dinner. That way everyone could sample both without feeling too guilty.
The first was a white chocolate mousse topped off with a raspberry.
I used a pastry bag to fill the fancy shot glasses then tied my silver demitasse spoons onto each glass with a raffia ribbon.
Lastly, I made chocolate shot glass cups using a silicone mold. Very easy to do, just melt the chocolate, pour into the mold, refrigerate until set then pop out & fill with whatever you choose. Mine had English Toffee ice cream just to make it easy & because it's summer!
Besides the meal, the book was well received by everyone and the conversation was easy & excellent. I couldn't believe how quickly the time passed. Every effort put forth, 100% worthwhile.
It was definitely a magical night and everything I had envisioned it to be....
