A Four-Hour Lunch....

Great group today for our St. Patty's Day lunch....... as our friend B said this afternoon-- it's more difficult to put together a small group of people around a dinner-table than a large group of people for a party. But the seven of us today were a good match...... and we found out that our newest friend and neighbor J has read all of the Harry Potter books and is anxiously awaiting the 7th, as the rest of us are. Well, that sealed it--- we're definitely having a Harry Potter lunch after we all read the last book that is due out in late July.

Menu today was great....... we started off with K and B's tossed salad, which had everything under the sun in it-- all kinds of greens, pine nuts, tomatoes, cranberries, broccoli and cauliflower bits, cheese, shredded cabbage....... a delicious salad. We followed that with appetizers...... J brought little bundles of green beans wrapped up in slices of turkey bacon and sitting in an Oriental soy sauce. I had made my Greek spinach pie mixture and put it into bite-sized phyllo-dough cups..... those were nice and easy to make, giving my usual spanakopita recipe a little twist.

Main course was my casserole of green beans, broccoli, artichoke hearts and eggplant, served with the green rice that R and C brought. C also brought pesto sauce and gourmet crackers, which everyone munched on in the living room before we even got into the dining room for lunch. Instead of baking some bread or rolls, I had thin breadsticks sitting in St. Patty's Day mugs... cute shamrocks on the mugs, as well as little green leprechauns perched on the handles---- great eBay purchases that I will use again next year.

Dessert was fun....... chocolate truffles, the ice cream in the coconut-rimmed green sherbet glasses, and my shamrock-shaped cinnamon cake was over-the-top cute. I made two of them, one for each end of the table, and there was precious little left of both of them.

Good conversations throughout the lunch.... we took our time between each of the courses and because everything served was mainly vegetables, it wasn't a heavy meal. The weather was sunny and warm and beautiful outside, so the cats and Gracie were all happy to be out on the screen-porch for the afternoon.

The Harry Potter lunch will be fun... everyone is already talking about it, and R suggested we all come dressed up as one of the characters in the book. (Only in Texas....) I don't think I'd go quite that far myself....... but a magic wand at each place setting maybe, and a wizard's hat for each of us.... I guess that wouldn't be too over-the-top (not for Texas...).

But that's not going to be planned till August, I would imagine, to give us all time to read the last Potter book. Before then, we may do a chili cook-off lunch........ my husband reminded me that the chili cook-off at the local college is coming up soon, and I told him that it may be fun to have our own chili cook-off lunch right here, with maybe five or six couples. Everyone can bring their own pot of chili and the chili-lovers can vote on their favorite recipe. I'm not a chili-lover, so I will make the cornbread and salad, and come up with some sort of dessert that wouldn't compete with the chili.

Another party, another lunch.... more plans for another day. This hostess has just about had it for the night.