getting crafty

My sister is getting married in a few months, and I am one of the two maids of honor, and the only local one, so of course it fell upon me to plan the pre-wedding festivities.

Neither my sister nor I are big fans of traditional bridal showers or bachelorette parties, so I planned a totally different kind of event, and I think it turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself.

As an aside, one would think that being stuck in an airport for 9 hours during a layover would suck, but with free wi-fi and lots of cheap Taiwanese eats to be had, I'm actually kind of enjoying it. For instance, I usually never have time to catch up on blogging. Okay, back on topic...

We started the weekend at Doodlebug, an arts and crafts studio in Marin. I had booked the six of us for a "glass fusing" class, which sounded a bit boring at first ("glue pieces of glass to other pieces of class, and then fuse") but turned out to be really creative and fun, and took us the entire allotted two hour timeslot.

The seven of us ended up with very different designs:








Each of the pieces will be fused together until smooth, and then "slumped" into a plate shape, so we can keep them and use them as serving plates. (It takes awhile to get time in the super-hot oven, so we have to pick up the plates later.) The best part is, we only paid $30 per person for all of the time, materials, and instruction.

After the class we were starving, which was good because I had booked us brunch at the nearby Barefoot Cafe. Their portion sizes were huge, and the food was quite good, too. My favorites were the pear and almond pancakes, and the crab benedict:



After brunch we were pretty food coma-ed so we just hung out at my parents' house for awhile playing silly Facebook games and chatting.

Around 3:30pm, we started our cooking class. I had hired a chef to come to my parents' house, to teach the seven of us to make various "small plates". The menu items that I chose were: traditional Mexican ceviche, sweet corn & basil soup, crab & fuji apple salad w/ endive, tomato & basil & gruyere on puff pastry, wild mushroom & parmesan risotto, and braised shortrib on a toasted roll w/ horseradish & chive cream.

It was really fun; we learned knife skills for tomatoes, onions, and garlic, what fresh horseradish looked like, how to properly make a traditional mirepoix, how to roll out puff pastry, how to treat apples and endives so they wouldn't wilt/brown, and lots more. We finished up around 7:30-8pm, at which point we were exhausted but ravenous again, despite having snacked on all of the dishes during the cooking process. Nevertheless, the eleven of us (seven cooks plus four relatives who had come just for dinner) were totally unable to finish all the food that the chef had brought, and ended up eating the food for midnight snack, for breakfast, and even the following Monday.

Here are some photos of the food, both during and after the class...

mixing the ceviche:


gorgeous organic Roma tomatoes:


prepping the wild mushrooms for the risotto:


sweet corn & basil soup, almost done:


grating fresh horseradish:


the dinner table:


closeup on the crab & endive salad:


puff pastry:


braised shortrib sandwich (assembly required):


I was very happy with the chef, the way she taught us, and the fresh and delicious organic ingredients that she brought for us. She normally teaches for Cooks Boulevard in San Francisco, and I think my mother was inspired to possibly try some of the regular classes.

There were no more formal events that evening, but we had a fun night of hanging out before going to bed.

The next morning we had a lazy Sunday brunch at home. My mom made both sweet and savory crepes, fresh scallion pancakes, and served tons of fruit as well (blueberries, strawberries, peaches, grapes, and more).

That afternoon we headed back to San Francisco to have afternoon tea at Crown & Crumpet, a tea salon in Ghiradelli Square. It's very very pink, and very much not my style, but I knew my sister would get an over-the-top kick out of it.

Witness the pinkness...

there was a gigantic fake wedding cake centerpiece, which was later removed to make room for food:


the sugar had molded white and pink doves in it:


finally, the good stuff:


party favor for the bride-to-be:


After six pots of tea and some gift giving, we all went home. I didn't bother with dinner, but did take some Kara's Cupcakes home to share with friends, as they were right next door.