Victoriana luncheon

I'm happy to report the Victoriana Fete was a great success! I had a wonderful time, the food was fabulous and the company even better. Thanks to Dad volunteering to be our Chef for the day (Chef Blanc-de-Blanc) my simple little Fete morphed into a 6-course luncheon (with wines!). We are insane!

The food went off well, thanks to lots of pre-planning and excel spreadsheets with Dad. And of course the help of my kitchen slaves helpers/guests of honor Sara & Aubry. They helped me clear plates, pour the wine and serve. We make such a good team. It was a lot of work but it was a lot of fun. I don't expect to do anything like this for a good long while though! Whew!

The Menu:

Each course had it's corosponding beverage too:
hors d'œuvre - Blanc-de-Blanc Champagne
fish - Chardonnay or Pinot Grigio
entree - Shiraz (Penfold's Bin 128)
cheese - Ruby or Tawny Port
dessert - coffee, & more champagne & port

We also had an alternative entree for my vegetarian guests, Wild Mushroom Ragoût in puff pastry. I nibbled off of Aubry's plate and that was tasty too - yay! I'm getting more comfortable with working around everyone's food allergies and diet restrictions, it's challenging but fun! I think my favorite course was the Stilton with local honey, walnuts and port - it really hit the spot! The creamed carrots were an untried recipe from the Last Dinner in the Titanic cookbook and they turned out to be really good.

I'm happy to say my cake turned out well too, a huge thing since cakes are my weak point in baking. The marzipan was surprisingly easy to make, the marzipan roses not to much. Apparently I suck at making marzipan roses, Dad ended up making them all for me. Hee.

After the rest of the party left , and I went outside for more pics and ended up in the woods behind my house for silly pics - it was such a ridiculous thing to do in our frocks but SO fun! After that we stripped down to our frilly Victorian undies and spent the evening drinking the open bottles of champagne, sparkling lemonade and wine - plotting and planning costumes for the rest of 2011. A perfect way to end the evening.

More photos from the party:
Jenny-Rose (plus a few favorites stolen from A&S!)
Isabella
Sara
Aubry