- sitting on my couch in my living room on the hottest day of the summer listening to the kitsilano neighborhood alive and kicking, but being too hot and lazy to get up and join.
- sitting on jericho beach during the summer and seeing the downtown city lights in the distance and drinking beers.
- sitting on various patios in the summer and enjoying vancouver in it's prime.
- greek day in my hood.
- the smell of fall and halloween and getting so antsy to bake and cook during the fall season.
but december is truly my favorite time of the year. hands down. it's not my favorite month or winter isn't my favorite month, just my favorite TIME of year. there is a difference.
lots of people hate christmas. but I LOVE IT. i mean i really do. no matter how stressed out i get, no matter how it always seems to be the busiest time of the year for me at work (to the point where i'm sending work emails on my phone at the airport before i'm flying off to whatever destination where one of my family member lives), no matter how i fill up my social calendar so much it leaves me with one day to do all my christmas shopping frantically at 9 pm on a thursday, I DONT CARE I LOVE IT.
I love the roasted chestnut stands downtown, people rushing all over the place through the stores it becomes a blur of christmas music, lights, tinsel, the smell of gingerbread lattes coming from people's red starbuck cups. i adore it.
i also adore the first snow fall. any snow in vancouver is epic for me. especially when it starts at 11 pm at night on my way home from a christmas party and i'm walking with my boyfriend through a city that has suddenly turned quiet, all because of the layer of white on the ground. i love getting stuck on a bus that goes 10 miles an hour because the driver is terrified and seeing everyone get out of their cars to help people out of ditches. seriously, the whole air is buzzed with the magic of snow. and everyone is taking pictures and laughing. because no matter how cold you are or how pissed that the city doesn't have enough snow plows, that first half hour you smile like a kid and throw a snow ball.
anyways, that super long intro was to tell you about our most wonderful dinner party we had this past weekend.
naturally wanting to share our love during the most loving and giving time of year, franz and i had the brilliant idea of inviting 15 of some of our closest friends for dinner. we laughed about it, saying it would be such a fun, relaxing day. we love cooking, and our friends, what could go wrong? so invitations were sent and a week later franz and i realize we're making dinner for 15 people, plus our roommates so 17. here's how it went.
8 am
I wake up to begin cooking my two cakes. still high on euphoria from walking home last night during the first snow fall, I spend a full 10 minutes on my patio in bathrobe and franz's huge shoes taking pictures of the pretty snow.
8: 20 am
still groggy from sleep, i attempt to read the recipe for the elaborate chocolate torte i'm making. i comprehend i need to melt chocolate and butter together. as i do so i keep dipping my finger into it expecting amazing chocolate taste, but i mostly get melted butter. my stomach does not agree with this at 8 am.
8:25 am
after my chocolate melted, i realize i can not find any of our big mixing bowls. wtf. i search everywhere and start to panic. where are they???!!!!! HOW DO I BAKEOHMYGODTHISDINNERISRUINEDFRANZISGONNAKILLMEWESPENTALLTHISMONEYONFOOD. my solution is to mix my batter in a giant pot.
8:27 am
i wake up franz to make him walk in the snow to safeway to buy a springform pan, because apprently this is missing as well. clearly we have a kitchenware thief.
8:50 am
franz comes back armed with juice and bagels, but no pan. he informs me safeway doesn't sell them. i freak out again and try to come up with another solution. i find another pan that could work, franz tells me we can go to the kitchen store by our house when it opens at 11 am.
9:30 am
franz and play super mario brothers that we bought at the flea market last weekend as we wait for my first cake to bake.
10:11 am
franz and i wander through the snow to the fruit and veggie market to get the rest of the ingredients for our dinner. i mistake white mushrooms for shitake mushrooms. we continue on to the kitchen place and get my pan. franz realizes the reason he is grumpy is because he's had no coffee, we go to starbucks.
10:30 am
franz and i walk to the liquor store after already having been to the wine store and purchasing champagne and wine. we get some bailey's, pour it into our coffee 2 minutes after leaving the store.
11:00 am
we meet colin outside, our roommate, before going into the house. i offer him some of my coffee and bailey's, he asks where we got it from and franz holds up the bottle.
11:16 am
impromptu christmas music dance party begins in kitchen after having downed first glass of baileys.
11:30 am
cooking officially begins, franz is chopping veggies and i'm on the phone with my mom trying to decipher the recipe from an ancient german cookbook that's 100 years old, it's been in my family for years. it says i need "about 2 to 3 eggs, maybe some starch and milk if needed", in weird old style german vocabulary.
12:12 pm
my cake is baking and franz has me on peeling 15 potatoes duty, punk'd.
1:00 pm
franz and i season our giant roast, we throw a bunch of stuff on it.
franz "hmmm what about this turmeric?"
julia "yeah i guess so"
franz "well smell it"
we both smell, makes faces.
julia "sure whatever"
1:15 pm
after having put the roast in, more dancing to celebrate and opening of the champagne.
2:23 pm
i get back at franz for making me peel potatoes by making him prep my beans for my casserole. i make delicious filling for our stuffed chicken.
3:15 pm
colin watches as we stuff chicken breasts, i fail at the first 3 and put about 5 toothpicks in each piece to make them stay together.
4:oo pm
more celebration and dancing after we have both main meats cooking and all our sides ready to warm up before our guests come in, franz takes a shower, i clean.
4:45 pm
in the middle of blow drying my hair, our fuse blows. apparently while franz irons and i blow dry my hair, it's too much for our 1911 heritage house. we venture outside, me in my bathrobe, franz in his dress pants, no shirt and jacket, to get to our fuse box.
5:30 pm
we begin the last of our sides, the roast comes out, it's gorgeous. we celebrate by chugging the rest of our champagne and congratulating ourselves on being so relaxed and stress free. 17 person dinner no problem!
6:11 pm
all guests have arrived and are socializing in kitchen while we frantically try to get all sides warmed up and done, which is apparently a lot more time consuming and problematic as planned. i have a mini spazz out in the kitchen and tell everyone to get in the hallway.
6:30 pm
we are all seated, ready to eat. leah makes sentimental speech as a perfect christmas song starts to play and backs her up. everyone cheers. we eat and nothing is left over, except for a couple of slices of cake.
DINNER PARTY OF 17 EPIC FRANZ AND JULIA SUCCESS. extra thanks to dan for cleaning all my dishes and being super awesome so i could go to bed at 11:30 pm :D
2 comments:
so see you next sunday? round 2?
you know it.
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