Wednesday, November 30

Movie Supper Club


November Supper Club
Hosted by Craig & Jeanne  |  Theme: The Movies
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The idea for this month's supper club was to cook a dish from a movie. You could interpret this any way you wanted, but the point was to coordinate your dish with a specific scene. Leading up to Supper Club, there was some confusion whether we were going to stick to the theme, but in the end, it all worked out just fine. The Rohner house was decorated for Christmas with a lot of vintage ornaments. There was a place at the table for a friend who passed away recently. Our thoughts and our conversation sometimes circled around to other friends who couldn't make it to dinner. Mostly, it was supper club as usual, eating lots of good food with giant bottles of wine, talking on top of one another and toasting to all the things for which we are thankful: friendship, eating like kings every month and of course, the next supper club.


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First Course: Steak Tartare, Jason
Some Serial Killer Movie
Raw meat, murders. It works. Jason tried to use as food processor at first, but it turned his beautiful meat into mush. He ended hand-chopping it and serving the tartare on little, round crackers. 


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Second Course: Baked Potato Soup, Tim & Lynn
Maybe Soup Nazi from Seinfeld?
Bacon, Cheese, Potatoes. Hearty goodness. In addition to the sour cream, bacon, cheese and potato chip garnish, Tim also peeled the skin off the potatoes and baked them into crisps. It was really terrific. Seriously though, after this soup, I was so full. It had everything.


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Main Course: Il Timpano, Craig & Jeanne
"Big Night"
Il Timpano is a giant puff pastry-like dish filled with pasta, meats and cheeses. It was kind of like a giant baked lasagna and more ambitious than anything I would ever try. Craig used ricotta instead of provolone and it was too wet to set, or so he says. Next time, they're making the pastry thinner and cooking it longer for a golden crust. We thought it was delicious the way it was, but won't mind if he has to keep practicing. We're all more than happy to taste his experiments.


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Main Course: Duck, Linh & George
"A Christmas Story"
We bought the duck from Kim Long Asian Market in Columbus Park. To keep in line with the movie, we went for take out. While we watched the clip, it was the first time I noticed that the restaurant they went to was called Bo Ling. We have one in Kansas City and man, oh man, would it have been funny.


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Dessert: Chocolate Chip Cookies with Ice Cold Milk, Rachel & Seth
"Stranger than Fiction"
Rachel says that although they don't actually make the cookies in the scene, it was his enjoyment of the cookies that made you want to eat them. Using someone else's oven, Rachel's cookies were a smidge overdone, but I'll take fresh-out-of-the-oven cookies any day. It was a such a nice way to end the meal. 


And of course, our group goof off.


Tuesday, November 22

Autumn at the Lake


The girls and I went down to a friend's lake house this weekend. It was a one-day getaway and it was a nice break from our regular lives. The sun streamed through the clouds just like the top picture for our entire drive down. It took us five hours to make the normally two and half hour drive. Our first stumble came from inaccurate directions. When we figured out we were too late to meet the rest of girls for outlet shopping, we stopped in Cole Camp, Missouri. There was a craft fair going on that weekend so the town was hopping. Lots of old ladies with perms in antique shops and city girls with rhinestone jeans and purses. Paul was in a "business meeting" all weekend. I love how he put quotes around it because it makes me think of my friend Scott, who called all his #2's at work, business meetings.


Lake houses invariably have weird, kitschy decor pieces that are scattered throughout the property. Like this creepy, blonde kid nestled among the leaves, an alligator at the edge of the deck and of course, loads of light house decor. The house looked exactly as my own parents would have furnished it, down to the maroon couch set.

  

We drank Bloody Marys and lots of Jameson and hot tea, built a fire, walked and sometimes fell through the piles of leaves and acorns and stuck our toes in the cold lake water. We did each other's nails (very badly), gave one another hand massages and ate brownies. Mostly we alternated between eating, drinking and waiting. Those girls were on a marathon shopping trip!


No one really wanted their picture taken, including me, but we managed to get a few shots of ourselves goofing around and hanging out.



Friday, November 18

Kina Grannis


This video is a work of art, ingenuity and took two years to bring to fruition.
Can you believe it's made of jelly beans?! The song is beautiful too.
Directed by Greg Jardin and his team. via Creature Comforts.

Tuesday, November 15

Tacos & Beer

Concept #1: Design by Linh Trieu/Fresh Fish Creative

Believe it or not, I'm chairing ANOTHER fundraiser next year, one of two I will be coordinating. I must be a glutton for punishment to plan two events so close to each other. A couple of months apart is pretty close in my book. Since I will basically be managing two committees, I've reached out to more people to help out instead of trying to handle it all on my own. Especially the design aspect. To get the ball rolling on one of the events, I knocked out a concept to present to the Advisory Committee. I kept the beer and taco imagery, but simplified them into more streamlined icons that are repeated. The palette is yellow, orange and green. (Ignore the date and times, I just plugged in approximate details).

This event has an existing logo, but with the gradients, clip art and questionable font choices, I thought a redesign was in order. I've been told that the advisory committee loves and wants to keep the old logo. However, I think you can't possibly know what you want unless you have more options. Fingers crossed that we get approval to update the event logo. I'll share the other two concepts next week. They'll be designed by my friend and former co-worker Chris Magee-Jenks, who I hoodwinked into chairing the design committee for this event. Once we nail down a concept, I'll share more details about the event and organization. If you're looking to get involved in fundraising, we would love the help. Email me about volunteer opportunities!

Last year's logo.

Wednesday, November 9

Return of The Road Kill Chronicles


One day you're hanging out in the treetops, lobbing walnuts down to the ground and chasing each other making loud, squikky noises. The next you're laying flat as a pancake at the end of a driveway, staring up at the sky wondering, oh shit, what the hell just happened?

Life in Transition


My neighbor moved away recently, but she still comes home on the weekends. Right now, her house is mostly empty and there are a lot of little piles laying around. Since I'm using her bathroom while mine is being redone, I see it many times a day. I've always loved her house and everyone who comes to mine, stands across the street admiring hers. For good reason, Kat has impeccable taste and style.