Kitten party

Having dinner parties is one of my favorite things in the world to do, but somehow I got out of the habit when I moved to Seattle. I'd also started feeling self-conscious about not having the cash-flow to buy the best-pedigreed, freshest, most local versions of every ingredient I might want to use. Plus too many years of singleness and student-hood seem to have atrophied my cooking skills, which used to be pretty good. I hit rock bottom when I messed up oatmeal I was trying to to make for JJF, and vowed to turn things around.

So last night, with a kitten meet & greet as an excuse, I had my first Seattle dinner party. It was kind of a challenge on the culinary front because honoring dietary restrictions meant no meat or starch, so I just made all my favorite little things--tapas, sort of: homemade hummus with sesame flatbread crackers, carrots, cucumbers, and red peppers; two stinky cheeses and crackers; a caprese salad with basil and red and orange tomatoes from my garden; a greek salad with spinach, feta, olives, cucumber, red pepper, and yellow tomatoes and oregano from my garden; deviled eggs; watermelon; and three bottles of wine. I never leave myself enough time before I have people over, but as I was running around boiling eggs, squeezing lemons into chick peas, tearing up basil that was the byproduct of the afternoon's heavy pruning, and listening to equinoctial's mix #2, I felt totally happy.

And the kitten was loved and admired and completely worn out by the excitement, and everyone thinks it's scandalous that he still doesn't have a name.