Day 61: The Start of Something New...

This was NOT our dinner tonight. :)  Let me start there.  Our dinner was pizza from the new Espresso's on rte. 12 in Leominster. (It was good!)  But this was the scene in my kitchen tonight.  I asked Randy if it was weird that looking at this makes my heart beat fast (in a good way).  ha!  I truly love to cook, and having a whole bunch of ingredients at my disposal, just waiting for me to turn them into something delicious brings me so much excitement!  It reminds me of those cooking shows where the contestants are given free-range in the show's pantry.  That always seems like it would be the best part: raiding someone's kitchen to make whatever you want and all the ingredients are RIGHT THERE.  Is my passion for the culinary arts showing yet?

So the reason for all of this food is because I'm cooking dinner for a 60th birthday party tomorrow.  It's for my former pastor whose family is very dear to me.  Before I started this blog, I had a big birthday party for Randy, who turned 30 and graduated from college around the same time.  I cooked food for what I thought was going to be 80 people in attendance.  We didn't end up having that many people (there are always those no-shows) but we still had about 60 guests.  It was a lot of work, but empowering at the same time.  Doing something like this for so many people is scary, but when it was over I was like, "I did it!  I could do this again.  I CAN do this!"

George and Martha Kohl were at Randy's party where the idea of me cooking (or "catering") his 60th birthday party came about.  So that brings us to the photo above.  I'm starting the preparation process tonight and cooking all day tomorrow.  What's on the menu?  Stuffed shells, chicken piccata, herb-roasted potatoes, salad, and homemade dinner rolls for 60 guests.

The plan of attack is getting the shells put together tonight, along with the salads, and some of the prep work for tomorrow.  My fabulous, meticulous husband is the PERFECT sous chef!  His attention to detail and patience makes him just the person to slice and seed 25 lemons!  Quality in presentation is important to me, so I wanted lemon slices for the chicken as garnish, but I wanted them all to be seedless--that way it would be prettier and get rid of any choking hazards.  He carefully sliced and seeded 10 lemons, then juiced and seeded the other 15.  He also grated all of my cheese for the shells.  It was a late night, but I went to bed feeling pretty well prepared for morning.  We'll see what it brings.

Is this the start of a new career?  Time will tell.