Sent out invitations and planned the menu and schedule lists in order to prepare things ahead of time to enjoy the time with guests, albeit somewhat short. The best planning still doesn't cover it. I had menu planned, daily duties all lined up for myself and then...........we lost all water in the house. And at the same time, two, not one, but two walk-in coolers failed at the cheese plant. This means that cheese couldn't be kept cold. Not to mention throwing the daily list of duties 4 days in advance off completely! Without water, one cannot prep food. So I shifted gears, as any experienced farmer does, as we are well-versed on changing plans at a moment's notice due to weather, and decided to vacuum, straighten the house, and pickup old mags, papers and the like. Set up the tiki torches, arranged chairs etc. Tried to carry on. Like a farmer.
Come the day of the party water had been restored only about 12 hours before. So I was on a kamikazi mission to attempt to prepare everything and be ready for arrivals. Someone smart would have cancelled.......Low and behold I just about made it. As friends began to arrive, I greeted them with the best attention I could give however I was distracted because with that volume of food some of it needed to be kept in cold storage at the plant ( I don't have the fridge space for all that). So things were going along smoothly with children splashing in the pool, music blaring and folks seemingly enjoying themselves. And before I could pull the pork and roast up the shrimp or put on grass fed burgers, a huge storm, visible across the lake rumbled over. So although I had thought about the proverbial Plan B, I never entertained we would actually ALL have to move inside. And so it did. The party, that is. All of a sudden, I was on. About 50 people staring at me in my kitchen and surrounding area and had to finish preparing foods as well as figure out how to line up folks buffet style to access the pulled pork, which was lovingly 'pulled' by Dawn and meanwhile Kat frantically zested some lemons over the shrimp I was going to roast. It's truly a great get together when you can find local ingredients to boot:
basil I used from River Berry Farm for my pesto, as well as their fabulous sunflowers that graced a number of vases around the house and lettuce and tomatoes for all else! We also dined on some of our lamb in the form of kebabs. So all in all, it was a great time-and too bad I didn't get any photos after I made the Carolina style slaw
and other sides, and put the pork shoulders on the day before.
With this pork I made a fresh ground coffee, cumin, garlic and cayenne dry rub. The pulled pork was gone in about 5 minutes. So the storm blasted by and soon enough in shivering temperatures the kids were back again in the pool, and the core group of farmers stayed until midnight. Kat's blueberry tartlets were a hit-we needed about 100 more of them. A good time had by all! As Wolfgang Puck says, "Live, love and eat!" We did.
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