I took a few pictures of the food at the party last weekend, thinking vaguely I might post them and perhaps some recipes, but I was in the middle of doing a million things and didn’t take the time to take decent photos. Seeing how bad the photos were, I decided not to post them. But then I realized it’s been many days since I’ve posted anything and it will probably be a several more days before I have a chance to make a real post, so I thought I’d throw up an intermediate post with my bad photos.

Here’s sort of some stuff:

Some veggies on the London Tube platter my mom gave me (I love London with all my heart):

To the upper left of the veggies is a ranch dip that Fortinbras practically inhaled and asked me how I made it about 30 times. It was one part Vegenaise, one part Tofutti Better Than Sour Cream, and a mixture of spices that I REALLY should have written down (because it really did taste amazing). You can also sort of see my cucumber salad.

Peanut noodles:

Just udon noodles tossed in my peanut sauce (the recipe can be found in this post) and some scallions and sesame seeds. I would have included a julienned cucumber, but I didn’t think to make this dish until the last minute and didn’t have an extra cuke.

Homemade pita bread and hummus:

I really need to do a tutorial on making pita bread because it is so much fun! I love it! I’m sure you’ve seen enough hummus recipes that you don’t need another one. It was very basic: chickpeas, tahini, garlic, olive oil, fresh lemon juice, and salt. It was the first time I used dried chickpeas, though, which was exciting. In the way that soaking beans is exciting.

I don’t know if a photograph of food can get any worse than this, but here is the “nacho station”:

It consisted of both white and blue tortilla chips, red and green salsas, and my nacho dip, which is just the “Yeast Cheeze” recipe from this post mixed with one jar of chunky salsa. And our special glowy Jesus lights from Fortinbras because Fortinbras loves us. (If any of you are Smiths fans, you may be interested to know that the one on the right makes me sing, “the sun shines out of our behinds”.)

I bought a pineapple merely because it is my favorite fruit, but was surprised to get so many comments on it:

EVERYONE wanted to know how I cored the pineapple (and when I showed them the tool, they all seemed to want to use it as a weapon…I have strange friends). I used this tool, to which my aunt alerted me. I think I actually got mine at Whole Foods. Or maybe it was Wegmans. I can’t say; so much of my life is spent in both places they blur together. Anyway, the pineapple was devoured.

I’m not a huge dessert person, so it’s usually my weak point, as in I often entirely forget to make it (although I hear it from Fortinbras when I forget). I didn’t forget this time, so no whining from Fortinbras. In addition to three different kinds of homemade ice cream (mint chocolate chip, cookies & cream, and pistachio), I made blackbottoms:

These were also devoured. I think my friend Matty ate six of them himself. His new nickname is Blackbottom. Perhaps I should slap the recipe up here for you.

Not pictured here is Vegan Dad’s green enchiladas. Mark loves them so much and I thought they would be a crowd pleaser, so I made a double batch. They went over very well (and remember, none of my friends are vegan or, at this party, even vegetarian), and all of the people who were still around the next day happily ate the leftovers for lunch. Also not shown is a loaf of sourdough bread that I baked. I think that was gone before I even returned to the table because I don’t remember ever seeing it after putting it out.

So there you go, some crappy pictures of what I hope was good food. The party was great, though. I have a bunch of non-food photos but I’m pretty sure I’d get in trouble with my friends for posting most of them. Here is Mark doing a shot, though:

He did not enjoy it.

So that’s my pseudo-update for now. After all the party preparation, I’ve barely been in the kitchen. Then tonight I wanted to feed my sourdough starter and start preparing dough for a couple of loaves of bread I’d like to bake tomorrow for Mark’s family, and I cut myself chopping onions for a New York deli rye. Cut myself pretty badly, in fact. I don’t even know how I did it. I do know there was a lot of blood and I am a big huge sissy about blood, so there was a lot of feeling faint, dizziness, and moaning. Mark came to my rescue and bandaged it up for me, then, under my instruction, finished dicing the onion and even sauted it for me. He wanted me to tell you that he was my surrogate chef tonight. I did manage to make the sponge for the rye bread and a pâte fermentée for pain de campagne; hopefully my mixer won’t crap out again tomorrow because I probably can’t hand knead with this gimpy finger. One day, my friends, one day, this shall be mine.

We’ll be out of town over the weekend for a wedding, so I probably won’t have a post for another few days. I promise when I return I will have better photos and an actual recipe. Hopefully I’ll have all of my fingers.