Less Hustle More Coffee

We had a splendid time yesterday with friends. George had cooked up a fabulous Moroccan meal. The idea was mainly to give our guests the experience of eating food cooked in the moroccan tagine. George did the meal himself except that Lisa made a tabbouleh salad and brought dessert. I arranged the board above, but George had already picked the elements and drawn a design – I just followed his plan. I asked to contribute to the dinner but I think he knew I’ve been in such a time crunch lately so he said he had it all planned out and was taking care of it. ;-). So I took care of getting the house cleaned and setting the table.

I set the table as “Moroccan” looking as I could -but used what we had. You can see the tagine in the middle. George put the bowls on the table as I set the table to let me know that I could not have centerpieces. ::sigh:: So I managed to get a little jug of roses squeezed in for festiveness – because one at least has to have a side piece if not a centerpiece. George’s tagine meal was the centerpiece so I set my roses aside.

So George set up a Bloody Mary Bar. So you can see how much trouble George went to for this meal. He planned it and worked on it so hard over several weeks time. He bought ingredients early on and then the last three days he began cooking and prepping so that the day of our dinner party he could spend time visiting and not cooking. But he did save the tagine meals (a personal cooking show with Chef George – lol) for Don and Lisa to show them how it was done.

Quick Time Out Here for a Few Special Details on How This All Got Started

I have to explain a little something of our foodie events with our friends. When we get together with Don and Lisa it is a food festival of an event. We started out with appetizers that were different than the norm – maybe even a little upscale with various cheeses, jams, hot spreads. Don has an amazing salsa that includes pineapple that has been a favorite of mine through the years. Lisa makes some awesome side dish wonders and beautiful salads and delightful desserts that are usually delicate and just right – not too sweet and sometimes gluten free. George always like to bring various marinated shrimps. I usually pop in with a salad or pasta salad of some sort. Don always has been the “master chef” with a variety of meat, fish, sausages. Then Don and Lisa went to Italy. They came back and put on a proper Italian course meal for us. And we enjoyed it so much that we have come together to do various culture themed parties. We did a German one at our house. We did Spain at Don and Lisa’s. We did Hawaiian luau by their pool. We’ve done a Mexican dinner. And of course we have done Irish meals.

We have so many good memories with our friends and have gone on a few travels together as well – which of course means we get several days of foodie fun. And once we both planned trips to “The Big South Fork” and rented cabins unaware that the other couple and their family had done the same. One night we ate at a German restaurant in the middle of the country side and looked up and they were sitting right there! Can you believe it. We were about 3 hours from home. We hiked and played and ate the rest of the weekend together. We went to Tybee Island together and have many many fun memories including a very strange tornado event, finding secret beaches, a special restaurant in Savannah by mistake while dodging a bad Thunderstorm, the very strong Manhattan’s I made that took the men all night to sip (I didn’t know how to make one, lol).

Mostly our fun has been doing day long events (sometimes two days as we sometimes do sleepovers when situations allow so that no one is on the road and no one has to be a designated driver). Because where there is fun food involved, we usually have some fun and different drinks to share. So we always have loved our cuisine. We love to find new cuisine – and then we share what we have found that is different. It’s been so much fun over the years.

OK…Back to the Originally Scheduled Blog Post

Here were some of the other dishes. The tabbouleh salad, lemon chicken, bread, beet salad.

Here was one of the tagine dishes while it was cooking. He fixed this Friday night I believe. It’s the lamb meatballs, which were very spicy.

Here was my plate. You can see the beef, sweet potato, tomatoes and green peas – this was cooked in the tagine. My buttered bread pieces are covering up the lemon chicken, which was divine. And on the right you can see the lamb meatballs.

Oh and it’s not over yet!

Don and Lisa brought canoli and cheesecake baklava! My word! Do you understand how big each of those cheese cakes are? Now this is a full “to go plate” like you would put a whole meal in to go. We were amazed when they brought that out.

How on Earth Can we Eat this Much?

I feel like I also need to explain that in order to consume a meal like this – you have to start early in the day! They arrived around 12:30 and we ate off an on all day starting with the Bloody Mary bar which was brunch pretty much as it included bacon, shrimp, and various things along with the charcuterie board.

Oh I forgot to mention I don’t like bloody Mary’s. So after George helped everyone fix their personal bloody Mary with their preference of infused vodka and skewers of her deuvres embedded within, he fixed me an herbal drink which he had also planned in advance and I was very happy with it. Lisa had brought extra bacon for the event also and I was able to consume my share of the bacon without the Bloody Mary. :-). Happy Me. My drink was a vodka drink with cucumber, lemon, and rosemary and club soda I think for the bubbles. And lots of ice.

And then we sat and talked. The guys watched a music video from a long time ago – Dixie Dregs – I think also George had some old Dick Clark videos and American Bandstand. We came in and laughed at their hair and outfits!

I took pics of our Christmas gifts for Don, Lisa, Dillon, Amber, and Julianna (who didn’t get to come as she lives in CA and we miss her).

So we did our Christmas swap mid afternoon and everyone glazed off an on – with the charcuterie board – we did a refill on a few things. We shared the charcuterie recipe book with them. Lisa and Amber loved looking at that and getting ideas.

Around 5 or 5:30 George began getting everything heated up for dinner and began doing the tagine meal and we watched that. We ate and then after dinner we watched a YouTube video I wanted to share of the girl that lives in Svalbard. So I showed them that and they were intrigued at the weather there and how people could live that close to the North Pole. Then we watched Saturday night live – the very first shows from long ago as we ate dessert, devoured coffee, and George fixed Cacao for Lisa and anyone else that wanted to try that. She loved it.

After they left, I caught up with things on my phone – texts and such and then went to bed and slept for 10 hours.

Update from Friday.

So I left work at Noon and went to take Mom for her eye appt and she was woozy at the eye appointment and especially so after we got to Olive Garden and I was taking her in to the restaurant. I was scared to death she was going to fall. She kept saying it was like she was drunk. But she insisted she wanted to stay and eat that she was fine when she sat down. I think she had inner ear messed up or something. So we ate our spaghetti with meat sauce and it was very good.

I got her back home. And she said yesterday she was much better. She did an inner ear exercise to get her back into “orientation”. It’s very scary to me because she has to be able to get around her place without falling – if she can’t bathe, fix a meal, and take care of herself – we will have to go ahead and get her in assisted living. I just feel that it is coming sooner rather than later. So I’m worried about her because we haven’t even gotten pics on the wall yet. But that is next. She said she has kinda decided where she wants things now and asked if we would come hang pictures one day. So we are going to go do that. I’ve talked with George and we have a tentative date to do that. A lot of her pictures are heavy and big so I can’t do it by myself. I don’t even know how to drill anything. I’m just not a maintenance type of person. lol. I can hammer a nail into a wall and use those hanging strips, lol.

So anyway she got her eye injection Friday and we did our little outing at Olive Garden and she stayed in the car while I picked up some groceries she needed. And she gave me her tax receipts which I will copy today and get in the mail to Aunt Martha (who does her taxes).

Today’s Goals

I have some pretty big to do’s for today to get the week rolling right.

• Laundry
• Clean the kitchen and all the wine and tea glasses (we didn’t wash them last night as they are delicate and require room temp before sticking down in hot water).
• Change George’s sheets
• Copy Mom’s tax receipts
• Store run for some fresh items for work this week
• Car wash and Vacuum – I’ve put it off too long
• Restock my vitamins and BP meds in the weekly container
• Repack my back pack with things for work this week
• Coffee date with myself to plan on Less Hustle More Coffee blog/vlog growth and changes
• Plan the week – (Look at my calendar and see what is coming and plan any to do’s for the week).

Well I guess I’ll go back for another cup of coffee and get started on laundry and getting the kitchen clean, copy Mom’s taxes, and then I’ll figure things out from there. I probably need to do the store run fairly quickly so I don’t wimp out and not go at all, lol, which is totally possible. I sort of need to plan my work meals though so I don’t buy too much. I end up going and buying too much fresh stuff and then I don’t eat it and have to throw it away. It’s usually salad mix. I think we will eat it at night some and then at work I don’t eat it b/c I don’t have time to gather all the stuff and chop to put the salad together. Anyway, I find if I buy the iceberg lettuce George will eat that and we’ll have more salads at home. I don’t think he likes the spring mix like I do. He does most of the cooking so the spring mix sits in the fridge and I discover on the weekends that I’ve/We’ve let it expire. ::sigh::

Ok I’m off of here. It’s been a long entry. But it was an exciting day for us yesterday. I know I talked a lot about the food and we DO love it. But most of all we just love seeing our friends again. It had been far too long.

Over and out. What you up to this weekend? Let me know if you made it to the end of the blog post. You are so special to me if you did! 😉