 |
| "Still Life with Grapes and Game," Frans Snyders, c. 1630 Image Courtesy of the National Gallery of Art Open Access Program |
Hello friends,
One of my favorite ways to incorporate a little bit of extra creativity into my life is by using it to increase the aesthetic appeal of the intimate gatherings I've hosted.
I give you my New Years Eve table spread in all its glory:
I don't know why, but for some reason I just get giddy over the thought of a creative or opulent table spread. Maybe because it's more to do with curation than with crafting, the perfect selection and balance of thematic trinkets, foliage and/or colors. Or maybe it's to do with the art of collecting. The table spread gives me an opportunity to show off to others the sundry lovelies I have amassed over time, all operating in concert. I love table spreads so much I've created this ongoing table spread Pinterest board for inspiration.
I'm sure many of us have all seen the "expectations vs. reality" memes about New Years floating around; You go in expecting glamorously dressed people having an amazing time, a classy affair with classy cocktails, a confetti drop and champagne at midnight with everyone all excited, maybe even a big smackeroo...and what you actually get is showing up to a bar with only 3 other people in jeans and a sad party hat and a sad noisemaker and several hours of boredom waiting for midnight to come and when it does it's super anticlimactic. I decided to head this whole fiasco off, having lived it too many times to count.
I invited a few close friends - whose company I would enjoy even if we were sitting together staring at the wall - over to my house at 9PM for drinks and desert and some Cards Against Humanity (we played just with cards from the new green box expansion which is HILARIOUS, before I added them to my bigger blacker box). But I wanted to do something in keeping with the fancy, opulent expectations we all have for New Years. A friend of mine who has a 3-month old baby was particularly excited about getting out of the house and informed me that the baby would be wearing a dapper little baby tie. I couldn't not make the event a little fancy. This table spread was my opportunity.
I wanted something opulent and inspired by old school still life paintings (though with considerably fewer dead animals). I went with flowers in a wintry color scheme (white mums, hydrangeas and daisies and pale blush roses) along with winter flora, like berries and wax flower. I also decorated with a few candles and meyer lemons, feeling that the yellow would really pop against the blush roses and create that concept of ample bounty that I love about so many traditional still life works. I tried to incorporate as much metallic gold and silver as I could, with three different kinds of fancy glass wear (booze and wine not pictured as they were stashed elsewhere with their own little floral vignettes). Trays in silver and gold made for added interest and texture, and broke up the vast white plane of the table cloth (aka the cheap sateen sheet I pretended was a table cloth).
My table featured the following treats:
-My signature butter cookie jam sammiches (of course) made with strawberry jam this time.
-Candied orange slices (you can buy them packaged at Trader Joe's) dipped in a spiced chocolate ganache I made by mixing melted chocolate chips and heavy cream in a double boiler with some sugar and this magnificent pumpkin spice moonshine I discovered at a distillery I visited on a trip to West Virginia (I'm told this moonshine is available for purchase at the liquor store on P St. by Dupont Circle, if you live in DC). I also did some almonds, in the bowl on the right. The least photogenic of my offerings.
-The easiest and most delicious peppermint oreo bark using this recipe, though I subbed Lindt white chocolate bars for white chocolate chips not because I am classy but because that's what they had at CVS. I probably don't need to say it, but it worked just fine.
-A standard cheese plate with brie, toscano and a cranberry goat cheese and grapes, with assorted crackers and cut up baguette.
And, of course, the crowning glory of the evening was my homemade eggnog.
I adapted my recipe from this near-encyclopedic egg nog article. Except that I didn't whip in the egg whites because egg whites are gross, and I didn't need them anyway because instead of using 2 cups of milk and 1 cup of heavy cream I just straight up used 3 cups of heavy cream what of it don't judge me. And of course 1.5 cups of Bulleit Bourbon (recipe says anywhere from 1 to 1.5 so, obviously 1.5). Also, while the recipe calls for nutmeg I added nutmeg, cinnamon, cardamom and ginger (the same spice combo I use for banana bread).
In the process of adapting this beverage I ended up accidentally doing research, and I never knew that eggnog was so fascinating. It's like a little microcosm for things like biology and US trade history.
The booze, it turns out, isn't just there because we like booze and it makes us happy, and I didn't just use the maximum amount because I'm a lush. The booze is there because back in the day, when people couldn't refrigerate, they needed a way to preserve their dairy products through the winter. Alcohol acts both as a sterilizer and a preservative, so nog with a sufficient amount of alcohol in it can keep for weeks, and apparently gets better with age. 1.5 was the lucky number.
Traditionally, back in Europe, people used wine or sherry. In the American colonies wine and sherry were extremely expensive because they were taxed as imports, so colonial Americans used rum imported from the Caribbean. During the revolution, however, rum became hard to find. That's when our forefathers turned to domestic spirits, and bourbon eggnog was born. George Washington's egg nog was apparently the jungle juice of its time, combining whiskey, rum and sherry all together (ew). Also, in 1826, West Point was home to an eggnog riot. Not making this up.
I also made a point of using local, organic, farm fresh eggs and cream from my gorgeous CSA, and mixed the nog together the same day they were delivered to ensure the alcohol was in there preserving and sterilizing as soon as possible. Consequently, between the booze and the freshness of the ingredients, the likelihood of getting sick from the raw eggs in my nog is very slim.
And lemme tell you, it is a world apart from the nasty, fake, non-alcoholic stuff you can buy in the store. My egg nog basically tastes like bourbon ice cream. Which means it basically tastes like the greatest thing that ever happened ever. Cept maybe that oreo peppermint bark.
How about you, readers? What do you do to make your gatherings at home into something special? Have you ever done something truly creative with a table spread before? What homemade treats add a sense of luxury and panache to the events that you host? Have you ever tried your hand at home made eggnog or other treats using raw egg? How did it work out? Discuss in the comments.
Emily
No comments:
Post a Comment