An Explosive Evening of Friends and Food: Eye Popping, Colorful & Flaming

beautiful colors.

let the fireworks begin!

firework food:  garden fresh beets, cheese and herb appetizer by Jennie Lloyd

tiny watermelon vessels filled with basalmic vinegar garnished with basil or mint leaves by Jennie Lloyd.  don't they look like japanese sake cups?

herbed shortbread

homemade foccaccia by John and Natalie Banks

sundried tomato hummus and pita chips (don't know who contributed???)

Nanette was just too picturesque to not capture her fine server skills and colorful attire.  notice her enameled flower necklace by Kristy Braby designs.

Cambry Morely, the super fine hostess, dressed in the signature color of their home.  I should have photographed their front door.  yep, it's orange.

husband wife coordinated orange shoes, I mean really, how darling is that?

love this platter courtesy of Nanette Amis

we all assumed we must wear bright colorful shoes to this eye-popping evening.

loved the cloths

herbed butter for the corn

grilled corn

garden fresh squash by Nanette and Jeff Amis

another fresh beet salad with special ricotta and right-from-the-garden, spicy arugula by Nanette Amis

homemade tabouli by Julie Roberts (Don's mother's recipe....mmmmm)

killer mushrooms, some kind of white wine I'm guessing, whole shrimp with an herb cream sauce to be poured over salmon medallions by Brent Morely.  amazing.

tied salmon medallions with mushrooms poaching in pan

the fine hostess couple, Brent isn't posing at all.

I love their living room

and their light fixtures,

and all their little nooks.

The shrimp cream sauce in it's final cooked state

a bowl of fresh lettuce for the tabouli, so pretty that I needed a picture.

The seafood all served up.

as beautiful as this is, it tasted even better, thanks Brent, it was definitely worth the wait.

the food plated up.

we won't discuss this part of the evening, the details still seem pretty vague as far as who was inolved and what was used.  but be assured that nothing was harmed in the making of these images, well except for a box of all-bran, and I guess a lemon was shred pretty badly, but hey, the watermelon was saved by a faulty fuse, and the 2 pound bag of powdered sugar smelled of cooked caramel in the end.  don't ever use potato chips, I mean seriously, ever. 

a pile of dust bran and cardboard shrapnel.

the evening's interactive food fireworks finale.

the girls all helped create these beauties in the kitchen.  

I brought homemade fillings: lemon curd, marscarpone cheese sweetened whipped cream, chocolate ganache, dulce de leche, vanilla pastry cream.  it pained me that I left the freshly whipped sweetened cream in my fridge, so sad.
Then came the homemade cupcakes (no Nanette, not a single box cake or canned frosting was used in the styling of these photos):  lemon vanilla, moist devil's food cake, vanilla, and pavlova meringue.
Then the garnishes: dried pineapple flowers (took a ridiculous amount of time- 4 1/2 hours as opposed to the 1 hour suggested time frame given), golden raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, dark swiss chocolate squares, semi-sweet chocolate shavings and sliced lemons.
did I mention I was in the kitchen from 8 saturday morning until we left at 6 pm?  but worth it.