My mom and I just put together a shower for Emily Beaty welcoming her new baby girl, Aubry Beaty. As always, my mom and I had a lot of fun coming up with creative ways to pull it all together. We did a strawberry pink with a lighter pink and brown. Personally I thought it was so cute she needed to do her nursery in those colors!! But if I have a baby girl, I will end up using them, so I guess it is good she didn't. This time around I was responsible for
all the food which might seem like a huge burden for some people, but I LOVE it! I baked a sourdough breadbowl from scratch, which was so fun, bruschetta, a pecan-strawberry-feta cheese salad with homemade dressing that I made, and a chinese chicken salad with homemade salad dressing.
The second was a little spicy, but people said they liked it. Next time I would use half the chili-garlic sauce to take some of the zing out of it.
Then for dessert I made a vanilla cake with black raspberry reserves in the middles layers and Chambord Liqueur frosting. That was fun. I also had little "strawberry creams"
they were called. I thought they were cute, they were in little glasses that were so cute and we got them at the dollar store! Anyway, it was so fun, and I would love to be doing this more often.
We will see if I get some opportunities in the future. People are amazed that I enjoy it so much and that it isn't a complete burden! So pass my name along! Hopefully, Emily enjoyed the shower, she got some good stuff. I think she is due early September, so that is exciting! She looks fabulous, too, not like she is 9 months pregnant!
Okay so I had a new idea the other day. I decided to combine two of my most favorite things: food/cooking and family. Maybe initially it sounds a little weird so I am going to let you know how it started. As you might know, I love to cook. I don't think I ever tire of it. I could bake all day for someone else, and then still make dinner for the family. So this last trip to the Bahamas, I asked my mother-in-law to pack up some good Bahamian food, including Lavar's favorite, conch, so I could try it out in the states. Well we have been back for a couple weeks now and I have been looking for a day to try it. I thought today would be great. So we invited our friends Paul and Tanesha with their two kids, Isaiah and Nadia over for dinner, along with my brother, parents, and our friend Bri. I made Cracked conch (deep fried conch), BBQ chicken, grouper (fish), corn, Bahamian Mac n Cheese, and rice. 
It was good! I did it! Lavar liked it, which was the big challenge! Now I know that I could live in the Bahamas if we ever did move there. SO going back to my thought. While I was cooking the other day, I saw a box of tempura batter in the cupboard. I said to my mom that we should have a family get together, once a month, and each month it should be a different type of international cuisine. We have a well traveled family, so we thought this would be fun. I also would love to learn different things about different countries and the way that they prepare their meals. So it was decided then. Next month, inspired by the tempura batter, is going to be Japanese! I don't think I have ever really had Japanese food, so this should be interesting, but I know that I will have a blast trying. 
I told my brother and sister-in-law and they would like to come up for as many as they can as well. So this should be a fun new tradition that we start. Hopefully it pans out. I am not sure how well it will work when my immediate family leaves the country, but hopefully they will carry it on without me. We will definitely do Japanese before we leave... I hope. I attached some pictures of tonights Bahamian dishes.
