I first created this cocktail for the last class, a Comfort Food-themed menu, in my 3-week cooking series at Les Gourmettes. I served it again as my Signature Cocktail on Thanksgiving. If ever there was a Comfort Food Menu – it is Thanksgiving!

To me, it’s important to use one big ice cube for this cocktail, either a square cube or a round ice ball.

I have both types of ice molds, but my round ball mold only makes one at a time, whereas the square mold makes 6 cubes at once. Since I had 16 cocktails to make for the cooking class and 12 more for Thanksgiving, of course, I went with the square cubes.

I did find THIS cool multi-round ball mold on Amazon. I’m adding it to my Christmas list!

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I loved this Thanksgiving. It was such a joy to cook a big meal for more than just our immediate family.

For years it’s just been the five of us; Dave, Marissa, Connor, my dad and me. Every few years, Dave’s mom would join us, which made the six of us. Still, that’s not many people to eat a meal that you go to so much work for.

Happily, in 2014, Jeff and his parents, Dean and Amy, joined us for the first time. Since my mother-in-law was here too, that took us all the way up to nine people, the most ever at our table!

Fast forward to this year. Steve and Tram are in a rental while their new home is being built. Steve’s parents are in town.

Add in the twins, Zak and Zoey and there are fourteen of us.

For the first time in… ever… I am actually cooking for a respectable number of people, thus making the huge Thanksgiving feast worthy of being called a feast. I am in my element!

I mean, it’s the same number of dishes I make every year, but this year it made sense to go to all that work. Love it!!

And, of course, having 2 ½-year-old twins join in the day, makes everything more fun! Zak and Zoey are so adorable and well-behaved. I’m in love with them and so are Connor, Marissa, and Jeff.

I posted a few photos on Instagram and my friend, Sheila, called them Bigs and Littles.

So sweet!

OK, how about some tablescaping?

Since we were at fourteen and my dining room table seats only eight comfortably, we had to eat outside. Not a problem in Arizona, even in November. But just in case it did rain, I flip-flopped the furniture arrangements. Moving all the seating that is under the long covered “fireplace patio” to the open patio area and moving the oblong table that is usually out in the open, to the covered area.

I also brought over the rustic 60-inch wood round table from the other covered patio to create one long table. The photo above is of the two tables under the covered patio and the beginnings of my table arranging. This all took place early on Wednesday morning.

At the same time that I was setting this up, I was also cooking; smoking a turkey breast, making bread dough, cranberry-pomegranate sauce, butternut soup, and prepping the sweet potatoes and stuffing. So by the time this photo was taken of the finished tables, it was late afternoon.

The oblong table was covered with a tablecloth since it’s a patio table and not attractive enough for placemats. Not to mention that I don’t have 12 matching Thanksgiving placemats and napkins anyhow.

The two tables were joined by two large green Jarrahdale pumpkins along with a large white pumpkin. Jarrahdale is my favorite pumpkin. I drove all the way Chino Valley to buy some a few years ago when I couldn’t find them locally. Now that they are available in a few places, I’ll drive to half a dozen different stores to find them.

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My dear friend, Tram Mai, morning anchor on 12News, and I have filmed several little segments for her morning show recently. The first one aired yesterday.

Tram sent me a LINK. This one is all about how to easily peel soft fruits.

Future clips include proper table setting, how to grill pizza, a homemade all-purpose cleaning solution, packing hacks, and more.

Thank you for all the sweet birthday wishes yesterday! I want to tell you that I kept my word and didn’t complain about the heat for the rest of the day yesterday … but today is a new day and the photo below says it all!

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Tomorrow is the drawing for the Free Cooking Classes, so be sure to get your comments in today!

In the meantime, I have some delicious photos from Sunday’s Les Dames d’Escoffier “Afternoon at the Farm: Cultivating Culinarians” fundraising event to share with you.

Hopefully, you’ve eaten before you see this because if not, it will have you drooling and running for the refrigerator!

Some of the photos are mine, some are lifted from Facebook and all the food photos from the sit-down portion of the afternoon were taken by Chef Stacey Schulz-McDevitt, who flew in from NYC to cook at the event. Thank you Stacey for allowing me to share them here!

I’ll put up the photos of the dishes in the order they are listed on the menu below. I’ll post portions of the menu as we go to help you keep track and identify the dishes and the talented women who made them.

Be ready to be amazed! Here we go…

Those were just the hor d’oeuvres … and the salsa station, above, wasn’t even listed on the menu. Each of the stations was accompanied by a different margarita and all the food for this portion of the afternoon was cooked and served by the students of C-CAP Arizona.

Now time for the sit-down, family-style lunch which was cooked on-site by some of the most talented and generous female chefs in Arizona.

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Until recently, in Germany and Austria, one was not allowed to call a dish Wiener Schnitzel unless it was made with veal. If the dish was made with pork instead, it needed to be called Wiener Schnitzel vom Schwein.

In 2009, they lighted up and a “Wiener Schnitzel” no longer refers exclusively to a veal dish, but instead to a breaded steak in general.

Since I didn’t want to offend or cause confusion, I just called it Pork Schnitzel on the menu skillet at my German-Swiss Dinner Party.

The recipe is an adaptation of a Tyler Florence recipe. From it, I learned a new technique for breading meat. Tyler suggests letting the breaded meat rest in the refrigerator, uncovered, for 10 minutes to allow the coating to dry out and adhere. It worked great! I’ll be doing that on all my breaded recipes from here on out.

Since I was cooking for 20, it was especially important to make this ahead. I cooked all the schnitzel, refrigerated and then reheated it and finished cooking it in the oven. If you are serving immediately, reduce the oven time to about 12 to 15 minutes.

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The signature cocktail for the German-Swiss Dinner Party was a blend of cranberry juice, Grand Marnier and Prosecco. If I had more time and energy I would have dressed it up with a few fresh cranberries and a sprig of thyme or rosemary.

But you know what? Those accouterments prevent one from quickly downing their cocktail, they just get in the way. Now that I think about it, I’m glad I didn’t dress it up!

Here are most of the guests, some with cocktails in hand, celebrating Tram & Steve for being named Best Power Couple in the October “Best of Phoenix” issue of Phoenix Magazine. I know they were a bit embarrassed that I placed an issue of the magazine on each table and then made them pose for me. What can I say? I’m proud of them!

Plus, it’s such a great photo of an amazing couple! Congratulations Steve & Tram! Love you to pieces!

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This image is one of my favorites from the thousands of photos I took on our Swiss-German summer trip.

My original intention was to post photos along with commentary for weeks worth of Travel Tuesdays. This is my third entry and I’m over it.

I’ve just got too much other stuff going on to focus on the past.

It’s becoming harder to remember the details from the trip and write about them when my mind is filled with what I still need to accomplish in the now!

Not to say it wasn’t an amazing and gorgeous trip. It was. I just have to move forward.

Luckily, if you want to know more about our travels and exploits…

I have a really wonderful place for you to go and not only read about our journey …

… but also see photos much more gorgeous and wonderful than these.

My Australian friend, Nell, was using a real camera to capture it all, while I was snapping away with my iPhone.

Not only that, she created a special daily blog page on Facebook.

With Nell’s permission, I share it with you. Here is the link to check it out.

When you open the page, the top entry is the end of the trip, so scroll to the bottom of the page to begin at the beginning.

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Remember when I had my 7^th Blogiversary contest and Nancy was the Grand Prize Winner and we cooked together?

One of the other contestants who put forth a recipe for the contest sent me the sweetest email after I had delivered the stack of 7 cookbooks to her front door. Amy G. said that she still wanted to share her winning-worthy recipe. I made it, so I know it’s a winner! Amy said that the recipe could be frozen, so I made a double batch at the end of August and can’t wait to pull my frozen stuffed steaks out of the freezer for Sunday’s supper!

So yeah, not only did I get to cook with Nancy and make her great overnight Rellenos but I got Amy’s delicious stuffed flank steak recipe too! I’m the winner now! Thank you, Amy G.

Here is what Amy wrote:

“I know I wasn’t the lucky winner to prepare a recipe, but I still wanted to share my flank steak recipe with you.  And, it is not so much a recipe, as a method.

Do you recall the Phoenix Meat Market at 7^th Ave and Osborn?  I think it closed mid-1990s…boo hoo!  They sold a steak called “Mexi-Flank Steak”,

And I was lucky enough to watch them prepare a batch one day.   After the market closed, I’ve made my own.

I’ll warn you…this is NOT a pretty presentation…the cheese and chilies will squish all over the place when you carve the meat! But, it is oh so yummy, and piled on to a tortilla, it doesn’t matter what the heck it looks like! I serve the steak with hot tortillas and seasoned black beans, (or a bean/corn salad) and Spanish rice if you really want to blow the diet!  Can’t go wrong with guacamole, too!”

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So many people to thank, so little time.

First, I want to thank you all for the comments and encouragement on my new venture, Miscellany Shed. It took less than 24 hours for the Miscellany Shed Facebook page to get 100 likes and that is in big thanks to these lovelies for sharing, posting, tweeting, and inviting others to like the page: Marissa Sandell, Tram Mai, Beverly Bertrand, Sloane Hansen, Whitney Cody, Sydney Wigle, Amy Kilpatrick, Lisa James, and Cyndi Greening. You are all amazing and wonderful friends and I can’t really thank you enough.

Speaking of someone I can’t thank enough, at the very tippy-top of that long list is Cyndi Greening. Cyndi is the “Blogmaster” who set up this very site for me back in 2009. She has been my dear friend since we worked together on the Beach Balls for Phoenix Children’s Hospital in the mid ’90s. Cyndi taught me how to use my first desktop personal computer, the first computer we had in our home. I know, hard and strange to remember NOT having a computer. Flying Toasters, anyone?

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Do you remember, back at the beginning of the month, when I told you that I had big news to announce on October 1st?

October 1, 2016

Well, I’m announcing it to you, today, a couple of weeks earlier than expected!

I have a new business! It was built out of my love of entertaining, my love of stuff and my wish to share. You see, I am a collector, an “Organized Hoarder”, some in my family would say.

When I entertain, the first thing I do is come up with a theme. I build the entire dinner, event, party, or whatever around that theme. The theme is what sparks my imagination and helps me create. Once I have the theme, I’m off and running. The theme is where my inspiration comes from for the decor, the food, the cocktails, the music playlists, and sometimes even the guest list.

So what does all of this lead to? It takes me to the fact that I have A LOT of stuff. A bunch of great collections.

One evening last fall, while enjoying cocktails with my BFFs, Peggy and Anne, we discussed the obvious need for me to do more with all The Stuff!

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