You Art What You Eat Food Challenge

Last month I received an honorable mention at our Publication Department's Semi Annual Food Challenge.  The theme of the April Food Challenge was: You Art What You Eat.  For this culinary event we needed to create dishes that were inspired by works of art.

Since I moved to the NC office and the rest of the department is in NYC I was faced with the additional problem of shipping my entry up to NY! After much thought I decided to ship  chocolate & bourbon pecan pies up. Craig and I had made pies like this once to take to my Aunt's house on Thanksgiving a few years ago and I remember that everyone really liked them. This time, I made them alone with a little over the shoulder supervision from Craig.  I followed the recipe for pecan pie that was on the Karo Syrup label and added chocolate chips and some Maker's Mark Bourbon to my taste. We didn't actually have enough Karo Syrup in the pantry so there was a tad less in the pies than  the recipe actually called for.

I decided on the pies because I thought they would ship well, and I could use my favorite Paul Friedrich piece with Dr. Strangegutt contemplating evil or pie.  I stopped at the party supply store to buy boxes and tissue paper and other items that would help with the shipping.  For 24 hours I was really nervous that they would arrive as one big mess.

Actually, they shipped so well that one of my coworkers emailed me to let me know that they were still intact even after the box had been sitting on its side in the reception area! I was happy about that but then I became nervous that they were actually as hard as rocks! After the challenge was over I  received lots of emails letting me know how good the pies were and I was relieved that they were edible. My honorable mention certificate is tacked up on my cubicle wall now, below my employee of the month certificate and next to my 2nd place certificates for the "Hair of the Dog" and the "Picking & Grinning" food challenges.

4 Weddings and a Family Vacation: Wedding #2

This past weekend Craig and I flew up to NYC to  attended our second wedding of the summer.  Josephine Daño and Vincent Zurzolo's Manhattan wedding ranks high on the scale of elegance.  

Since it was a morning wedding, Craig and I left the hotel at about 9:15 a.m. and headed over to the church. At first, we both felt a little out of place on the street, all dressed up so early in the morning. However, when we reached St. Malachy's  Church on West 49th Street between 8th & 9th Avenues, we fit in much better amongst the other wedding guests. 

The 108 year old church was breathtaking.  Josephine and Vincent did not have a traditional Roman Catholic mass, but in addition to several readings, they incorporated two beautiful traditions into their ceremony. They had a veil and lasso ceremony, where a large veil was draped over Josephine's head and over Vincent's shoulders, then a long double rosary made of clear crystal was placed over both of their shoulders. This is a Filipino tradition that symbolizes infinity and everlasting fidelity.  They also had a Latin coin ceremony where Vincent dropped coins into Josephine's hands symbolizing his financial commitment to her and their future children.

Afterwards, while the bridal party took pictures in different parts of the city, guests made their way across town to the Yale Club, on Vanderbilt Avenue, across from Grand Central Station.  There was a cocktail hour in the library with an antipasti buffet with meats, cheeses, pasta salads and mini empanadas as well as numerous pass around appetizers. The cocktail hour was followed by a 3 course dinner in a ball room on the second floor of the club.  The DJ was also a singer who sounded like Frank Sinatra. There was lots of dancing, speeches and fun all around. When I wasn't dancing with craig I was having a lot of fun catching up with old friends I hadn't seen since leaving NY two years ago.

And that is not all! For an after-party, Vincent and Josephine rented the mezzanine at The Campbell Apartment which is a high class lounge located in the corner of Grand Central Station. It provided a more intimate opportunity to talk with Josephine and other wedding guests after the reception --an opportunity I didn't really think I would actually get to have.  Craig and I didn't get back to our hotel until nearly midnight! It was a long but wonderful day.

Photo Journal: Andrew's first time in the pool

Andrew takes his first dip in the pool with his Opa Dad and his Mama Marybeth!  He liked it!

4 Weddings and a Family Vacation: Wedding #1

This is the summer of four weddings and a family vacation for Craig and me. On Saturday we kicked off  the first leg of this summers nuptuals  by attending the wedding of JoAnne Elizabeth Dickens and Jonathan Wade Hodges.

JoAnne and Jonathan have known each other since the eighth grade and I think they started dating when they were sophmores or juniors in high school. They both went on to Appalachian State and soon after they gratuated they were engaged. After they return from their honeymoon they will be moving off together to Georgia to begin their new life together.

JoAnne is the youngest daughter of one of my mother's best friends from High School, and she and I have grown up referring to each other as "cousins." I also want to note here that she is the youngest of 5, which I think adds to her spunk and tenacity. She is a writer who not only planned her wedding this year, she wrote an entire novel! I really truly believe that she has the strength and determination to succeed in anything she puts her heart and mind to.

On Saturday, they didn't have a mass celebrated during their wedding, but they did have a few readings and songs which really enriched the ceremony. Father McConville spoke about marriage and was both funny and poignant. I really enjoyed his homily.

The reception was at the North Raleigh Hilton. It was the first time in a long time that I had a sit down meal at a wedding as opposed to a buffet. Both Craig and I had the prime rib-which I must say was pretty darn good! I think whenever there is a choice of beef, fish or chicken I am going to opt for the beef from now on. As the evening progressed so did the party. Lots of dancing and good times!

One of the details I really liked was that at each table they had placed different photos of themselves along with some facts about their relationship. For example at our table the facts told us about how Jo and Jonathan celebrated their anniversaries. Jonathan would take Jo out to a fancy restaurant every year and Jo would get Jonathan the appropriate year's edition of the John Madden football video game.

One of the highlights of the evening was Jo Anne and Jonathan's first dance, they had a music montage of both romantic and fun songs. They even incorporated a very cute personally choreographed line dance that just HAS to make it to youtube!

Photo Journal: The Big Surprise!

This was Mariucci's face when she saw her friend, Buffett, who had flown in from Texas as a surprise for the Christening.   It was awesome!

Busy Busy Exhausting Weekend!

I think I have finally recovered from our weekend of catering. Craig booked two parties this past weekend. On Saturday he catered a small wedding for the mother of our friend (and Craig's co-worker/employee, Kevin) and on Sunday he catered a retirement party for my mom's friend/hair dresser. I was his kitchen helper.

My role as helper actually started during my lunch break on Friday when I ran errands such as, making the car payment at the bank, picking up the car magnets and driving across town to pick up a giant cutting board, a platter and some table cloths from United  Restaurant Equipment. Then after work I ran to BJ's to get 24 loaves of bread for sandwiches and french toast that Craig would be making this week. Luckily the AKC is pretty centrally located between all of those places with I-40, I-540 and Glenwood Ave at my disposal.

Friday night we stayed at the kitchen until nearly 10 p.m. prepping and cleaning.  Then we got up at 5:07 in the morning to head back to the kitchen. I know it was 5:07 because I allowed us to hit the snooze button once.  We were actually in the kitchen and working by 5:20.  Craig left with the food at 9:30 in the morning while I stayed behind to sweep up and finish cleaning some sheet pans etc.  Then I went home, cleaned the bath room, took a shower, had a egg salad at sandwich Harmony Café, went back to the kitchen to load up my car with the food for the halfway house (this food was actually prepped on Friday so it was ready to go), drove across town and delivered it.

By the time I drove back home and relaxed just a little bit, Craig sent me a text message to tell me that it was time  to clean up at the wedding-so off I went to the wedding reception site. I helped load up the car and bring things back to the kitchen. Then I was cleaning all sorts of platters and pans all over again.

Much to my dismay, we ended up staying at the kitchen until 10 p.m. again as we prepped for Sunday's party. However, I tried to put on a happy face about this. Craig said I could go home but I didn't want to leave him to do everything by himself. Things did get a little punchy when I was slicing the cheese for the cheese platters on the slicer. Craig and I volleyed a lot of "cutting the cheese" jokes.

We were able to sleep in a little bit on Sunday--if you count sleeping until 7 a.m. as sleeping in. Then, we were off to the kitchen again! This time Kevin was working and he came in around 9 a.m. at which point I was relieved of my kitchen helper duty. (yey!) I went over to Starbucks  and bought Craig a Chai though because I thought he would like it. (Kevin didn't want anything).  After that I went home, cleaned the rest of the apartment and got ready to go over to the retirement party to take some pictures of the food.  Over all, both parties were a success and Craig received a lot of complements. I think he really got a lot of good exposure.

Here are some pictures of Sunday's event (Craig forgot to take pictures on Saturday, although I think Kevin took some and we may be able to get some from the wedding photographer):

Fruit and Cheese:

The Spread:

The Team:

Spinach Dip:

Tending the Bar:

Refilling the Vegetables:

 Mr. Powers and Dad, Ironically Dressed the Same:

Governor's Club Table:
(Wow! Did my mom drum up all that business for Eva?)

Create-A-Dog Day

This month at work we are having the second annual May Days events put on by the employee events team (EET). Last year we had a week of events (which, by the way, I headed up and subsequently was awarded Employee of the Month for). Last year, the week, called May Days, included handing out free sunscreen  to everyone; stocking some mail carts with snacks and pushing them around the building to deliver snacks and drinks to everyone at their desks; dressing up for a fiesta on Cinco de Mayo (we weren't allowed to serve margaritas like we wanted to); creating sculptures of dogs out of Play-Doh & having them judged by conformation judges as well as fellow employees, giving out Krispy Kreme donuts to everyone; and a grand finale of setting up two wii stations in a conference room so people could take their break by playing on the wii.  This year they learned from last year's trouble spots and decided to spread the events out a little so that the May Days are spread out throughout the month. I also learned from my trouble spots and opted not to be a part of the subcomittee that planned this year's events!

Yesterday, we had our "Create-A-Dog" event. Instead of making sculptures the team decided that people could use several art supplies such as construction paper, crayons, colored pencils, glue etc. to create a piece of dog artwork. The only major rules were, you could only use supplies that were provided, you could not trace anything and it had to fit on an 8.5" x 11" sheet of paper. For the second year in a row my friend, Karen, walked away from the competition as a winner. Last year she won first place with her pink play-doh Scottish Terrier. This year she won second place with a pink "hole-punch" poodle.
 
Let me back track for a moment. On Monday, my friend Jennifer who works in HR called me. She told me that she was signed up for the Create-A-Dog Contest at 11:00 and that I had to participate with her. Since, "no," was apparantly not an option I hesitated and said, "uh, okay, but Karen has to participate too then!" That is how Jennifer, Karen and I ended up participating in the contest.  While we waited for Wedneday to roll around Karen and I hemmed and hawed about not knowing what we were going to do for the contest. We also waxed philospohical about how we could create dogs that were 1D since the email advertisement for the contest said you could create 1D, 2D and 3D artwork.
 
Then, yesterday, at 11:00 a.m. we were sitting in a conference room, with our art supplies in front of us, waiting to begin. Karen, was giving the EET members in charge a hard time by asking if she could tear a page out of the Complete Dog Book they provided her with as a point of reference and then joked that she was going to glue some of the pages together (she is such the class clown!). When the signal was given to begin Karen picks up a piece of pink construction paper and a hole puncher and proceeds to rhythmically punch holes...Punch! Punch! Punch Punch! Punch! (Like a timer of some sort). She was driving the rest of us in the room crazy with her punching!  She did this whole hole punching bit for at least 5 of the 20 minutes we were given to create our dog masterpieces. At one point I even thought that she was just punching holes in that paper out of spite to annoy us all because she didn't really want to participate. In the end, she created a pretty polished looking cartoon poodle. She had glued the "pink holes" onto the paper so that it became the poodle's signature puffs, bracelets and pompons! I must say, I think it was pretty awesome.

 I made a pencil drawing of a Doberman Pinscher but it didn't place. I spent a lot of time penciling the shape of the dog but I ran out of time before I could really shade it very well. I decided to do a pencil drawing since I did a pretty good pencil drawing in a HS art class once and recieved accolades about it somewhat recently from a good friend of mine, Nina, who I consider a great artist. I think my sketch, yesterday, sort of resembled a deer more than a dobe, but my friends assured me that they thought it looked really good. I usually am my worst critic so I'll take their word for it. Maybe, if I have time, I will go out and buy a sketch book and try it again . . . this time without a time constraint and in a quiet peaceful place.