Let the warming begin!

The weather is stunning, plenty cool enough to keep the French doors onto our new screened porch open all the time. It must be time to warm the place up! Tomorrow is our addition/kitchen warming party. We've adhered to my detailed list of tasks to prepare as closely as we could considering we were both smitten by stomach maladies this week. A few things will just have to go unfinished. Our guests, no doubt, will notice and be appalled. They will snicker about it later. We'll be the laughing stock of the neighborhood. But we will have plenty to eat.

In honor of the festivities, Jeremiah is smoking 2 briskets. This means that in an attempt, that will most likely fall short, to outshine his meat candy, I will bake my brains out. To be on the safe side, I'm making mostly tried and true things I know we love. Here's what our guests will munch on tomorrow:

various olives (no baking required)

Mom's crab dip

homemade salsa

homemade hummus

homemade guacamole

homemade baguettes (foo-do-fa-fa), of course

stuffed apricots

Mom's chocolate chip cookies (still my favorite recipe)

brownies (people demanded them, as a matter of fact)

Crepes with 3 cheeses

homemade cheese bread

white bean bruschetta

grilled veggie kabobs

and Jeremiah's smoked beef brisket (whatever)

For the little ones I'm making:

excitingly shaped pb&j sandwiches

bumps on a log

grapes (I'm not making those, but I did wash them)

some of those crepes with 3 cheeses

steamed edamame

sunflower seeds (again, the credit for those is not mine)

Yesterday I knocked out the hummus, chocolate chip cookies and brownies. I thought I'd fit in the salsa and guac but things tend to move somewhat slowly when the chef's kitchen assistants are on hand...the sheer cuteness level in the kitchen makes up for the loss of efficiency, in my opinion.