Other Things

I've been doing a small amount of beading, I tried to knit for twenty minutes but it hurt, I've been (oh the horror) refinishing an antique card table into and upon which a pot-plant saucer leaked badly and surreptitiously not to mention rudely, and then I decided to have my entire team from work over for dinner to show them that I'm at least good at something.

It may have worked too well because they're placing orders and asking me when they should be here.

I really meant to take pictures of everything, especially the soup which was gorgeous when plated: fennel vichyssoise garnished with home-cured salmon and fennel fronds, but all I snapped was the plate of salmon garnish which came out blurry so that was a wash.

I found a bag of carrots in four colours which retained their colour after roasting.

The salad was really pretty too, though not as pretty as planned. It was to be garnished with marinated and roasted red onions sliced to look like flowers, and indeed they did, sort of, but in this incarnation were too raw to be eaten in any sort of quantity:

So I opted for flavour and roasted them some more.

I made Bestilla, but didn't turn it out. It was still pretty:

Not to mention delicious.

And accompaniments. Dessert was good, but not as good as my usual recipe, though the brandied cherries are something I need to have in my pantry ALL THE TIME.

The astonishing thing (to me, who knows the way I usually do things) was that everything was cleaned up before I went to bed.

I knew I had stuff to do this evening.

Like finish the necklace that's been sitting on my beading table for at least a week:

Not too shabby, and I have another variant in my head which is always a plus.