Our good friend Joy invited us to her Christmas Eve party in Gloucester. There was a magnificent pot-luck spread to enjoy. Our contribution was this apple mincemeat pie. For style points, I took a couple of cookie cutters to some excess dough and stuck them on with a glaze made from the reduced apple drippings. It looks good.
Merry Christmas to all.
The MIT Perquackey Federation's tradition of an annual New Year's Eve celebration has fallen on hard times since the sale of Talbot House. Dave and Trish graciously offered to host the get together this year at their place. Everyone was surprised at the good turnout given the last minute nature of the arrangements and the 3" to 5" of new snow falling on the 31st.
No one was surprised by the excellent meal prepared (forgive the Americanized vocabulary): Cuban pork, red beans and rice, plantains, and more.
The day before I prepared a berry cherry pie based on the recipe from Killer Pies. Pie gal Trish offered up a delicious key lime pie. Trish did show me a recipe for Brazilian Pie from an old Better Homes and Garden cookbook. She tells me the current edition no longer lists the retro recipe for this instant coffee based cream pie. I hope she sends the recipe along.
All of the oldsters (and lone young pup, Richard) even managed to stay up past midnight. Woo hoo!
We used the occasion of leap year to host Perquackey. This is the first sizable get together we have hosted after most of the renovations here have been done. The space proved to be hospitable for our friends. We had a pleasant dinner and settled down to play. Daniel (second from right, mugging for the camera) claims the title of Leap Year Champion until the next Leap Year.
For those of you who have been following along, you know there was pie involved. I made the coconut creme pie from the recipe from the "Killer Pies" cookbook. Yum.
Here's another back-dated entry. Ab Initio fielded this splendid team in the
JP Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge, Boston 2007. Photo credit to Jim Frost.
We were hosting the MIT Perquackey Federation, so the only civilized thing to do was to bake a pie. I got a bunch (flock? swarm? pride? what do you call a collection of pears?) of crimson pears and surfed around the web for recipe ideas. Nothing from the web world offered inspiration, but another visit to the supermarket had me bringing back some raspberries. This turned out well.
The Perquackey cubes were kind to me early in the match, but I didn't take adequate advantage. It seemed to be a night of cold dice for most of us. Tuna won the evening in five rounds.
Jeff sweet-talked me into the two of us baking a pie. I divulged all of my crust making secrets and together we came up with a cherry blackberry lattice top pie. As you can see from the picture, it went quickly.
Now we just have to work on the filling. What do we need to keep the filling from being so soupy? Corn starch? Tapioca? Patience?
Jeff sweet-talked me into the two of us baking a pie. I divulged all of my crust making secrets and together we came up with a cherry blackberry lattice top pie. As you can see from the picture, it went quickly.
Now we just have to work on the filling. What do we need to keep the filling from being so soupy? Corn starch? Tapioca? Patience?
Karen and I visited Beth Hoyle for a day at Chapoquoit Beach in West Falmouth.
We had perfect weather over the weekend and had a very nice time at the Cape Cod Pops concert Saturday evening. Beth had won a table for the Pops at a silent auction. She hosted a group of her very nice friends and Karen & me. On Sunday we had lobster at Shuckers in Woods Hole and dinner back at Beth's with her neighbors George & Wes.
Dave & Trish had the inspiration that if their annual Fourth of July party was not actually on the Fourth of July, they would get a better turnout. Yesterday was this year's day, an ideal day and a very, very good time.
Our contribution was this blueberry pie. It was "criticized" for being too small, but all in all, there was no shortage of good food.
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