My sister and brother-in-law, Megan and Dustin, and their tireless tyke, London, our friends Deborah and Sarah, and their cherubic son, Jackson, and our friend Jacque joined us in our backyard patch on Saturday night. Our invitation was for a cookout, cocktails and croquet. I haven't played croquet since I was in grade school, but it seemed like a fun excuse to make it a slightly frilly backyard affair complete with foofy hats. (Check out the pennant garland--handmade by yours truly using old fabric scraps. I was happy to finally put my old store of awkwardly-sized remnants to decorative use!
A better view of the table setting! Yep, we sadly resorted to paper and plastic for this...not especially earth-friendly and not our usual MO. The plastic cups are from Solo's Bare line, which are a touted for their composition of %20 post-consumer recycled plastic, so despite using disposable items, we aimed to use those that were as kind to the environment as possible.
We managed to find those amazing organic flowers at the farmer's market the morning of the party--squeaking in towards the end of the market morning when the vendor (who also happens to make soaps and hand carved wooden furniture--cool) was discounting her flowery wares, probably so she wouldn't have to lug them back home. This large bouquet for $5 was broken up into lots of smaller vases, and made a big decorative impact without leaving one on our pockets.
Nick enjoyed a quiet cocktail with Jordan before our guests arrived. Our garden cocktail: the Palmer. We had one of these at downtown's Bistro Bethem a couple of weeks ago, and were instantly enamored. Best. Summer. Mixed. Drink. And it's sooo simple! We muddled mint leaves (fresh from our garden, natch) and drowned them with lemonade (we used Simply Lemonade) spiked with Firefly's Sweet Tea Vodka. You read that correctly: sweet tea vodka. It's one of those things that leaves you wondering what took them so long to come up with it! Seriously deelish.
Our menu was pretty simple as well, and we aimed to make it as farm-to-table as reasonably possible. Nick grilled burgers (both turkey and beef), and we served these with three different kinds of rolls (onion, poppy seed, french knot) and an assortment of toppings from either the farmer's market (mesclun greens, sliced red onions, tomatoes) or our backyard (basil mayo, sliced peppers). We served a Cesar potato salad made with purple fingerling potatoes, green beans, yellow wax beans, and radishes from the farmer's market. We also served a cherry tomato (yellow and red from the farmer's market), feta and orzo side dish with marjoram vinaigrette (marjoram from our backyard). Dessert was organic vanilla ice cream topped with fresh blueberries and blackberries from, where else, the farmer's market. Not too shabby!
Our endlessly adorable godson, Jackson, with a backdrop of our "songbird garden," which essentially is filled with a bunch of yet-to-bloom flowers for the birds to eventually eat. Also of note, this garden was pronounced by one of Jackson's moms as looking "weedy." Whatever! :)
After dinner, the croquet festivities began! The beginning wickets were between our two square foot gardens, and I felt like a paranoid mama making sure that no one stepped on anything. If you know anything about croquet, you will clearly understand that I have completely missed the first wicket, but in my defense this exuberant overshot was originally taken by my five-year old croquet partner.
Croquet partners 4-evah! Taken right before my partner refused to give me back our mallet, deciding that I could play when SHE decided that I should play. Interesting.
Notice the different croquet mallet/ball color at this juncture in the game? My partner left me to join Uncle Nick's team instead. Maybe not 4-evah afterall. ;)
It was a fun, intimate laid-back night with good food and good friends. Nothing better than spending time with people you love in a place you love.
It was a good evening. Thanks for inviting us. Sometimes you just got to appropriately put London in her place and she's back to good ol' London again!
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