I took last Friday off work to cook and clean all day – sounds like fun, doesn’t it, but it was, because I was getting ready for my annual knitting brunch with my friends from Knit Knight at the local yarn store. Fortunately, the house wasn’t too messy since we just had company a month ago. It did need some picking up, and the kitchen floor always benefits from a mopping. MaryAnne was pretty sure I stayed home to play with her all day, so I ended up spending some time throwing the ball for her to chase and catch.

I took a break at lunch time, and headed for the local Polish restaurant, knowing Ken would want to have nothing to do with going there with me. They have very reasonable lunch specials for $7.95 at Cracovia. I elected to have the Czerwony barszcz (beetroot soup with sour cream and potatoes) soup and the Golabki (cabbage roll). Since I had tomato sauce with my cabbage roll at the Bagel Deli, I tried the mushroom sauce here.

The soup is VERY pink. It is served hot, not cold. I gave it two thumbs up.

The cabbage roll was also excellent. A little filling for lunch. There were also several slices of bread, and “pork butter,” which involves lard, I believe. A little of that goes a long way.

Then I came home to more cleaning and cooking. And then Saturday morning, we had our party!

The sunroom, all set up and ready. The sunroom is pretty much the reason we bought this house.

I pull out all of my vintage linens. I do not care if they have a few holes or stains, they have character. And yes, they all have to be ironed, which is a big pain. But worth it.

My friend C. and I show off some of my vintage hat collection. The veil on mine is so long it would make it hard to eat. How did they deal with that? I guess ladies didn’t wear their hats to eat. Perhaps this was a church hat. It goes with this dress rather well, don’t you think?

I also pull out my Mom’s luncheon sets (glass plates) and my trays that were mostly wedding gifts.  I don’t remember where the swirly mod green one came from, I think I may have snagged that from Mom’s cupboard as well.

Smoked salmon/asparagus/cream cheese tortilla roll ups.

Pimento cheese finger sandwiches. All of the tea sandwich recipes are from here: http://teawithfriends.blogspot.com/

Green Chile Egg Casserole.

Prosciutto fig tea sandwiches.

Wonton Mini Quiches brought by my friend Cathy. They were excellent.

Pickle roll ups from my friend, C (pictured in hat.) I think these have: pickles, bread, and cheese. They are delicious!

More pimento cheese pics.

Dessert table: angel food cake with homemade strawberry sauce, Strawberry pretzel salad, kringle (hand carried from Wisconsin by my friend M., pictured here  with the champagne bottle making a mimosa), smoothies,  and Boston Creme Poke Cake. That poke cake is really rich, it needs LESS of something, maybe only one box of pudding would be better. Strawberry pretzel salad was good as always, I only make this when I have significant numbers of company coming, because I can’t eat it all. Everything was delicious, thank you to all my wonderful guests who attended shared food and laughs and who may never be the same after all of C’s dog stories.

The dessert table again. It was worth a 2nd picture.

We also had tea and punch, in a nice punch bowl, thanks to my friend Judy. She allows her punch bowl to live at my house and come out for the knitting parties. She also brings champagne for mimosas, what more could you ask for!

After we enjoyed our refreshments, we adjourned to the most comfortable chairs to knit and chat and tell wild stories.

A good time was had by all (I believe) and boy, did I sleep that night. (Ken hightailed it out of the house for the day, and the cats hid. MaryAnne did come out to be admired when there were only about 3 guests left.)

This is about how much help the cats were: