first meeting!

Niki recently recruited a group of fellow party-planning/food/decor/favor/flower obsessed ladies to form DC Gourmet Club. She had friends who were in another group.
The rules are: you have to a) send real paper invitations (yay!) b) have an appetizer and a dessert (dessert's a no-brainer!), c) you must do a take home favor (oh stop it!) and d) no "cream of" anything allowed!

She had me at real paper invites you send in the MAIL.

Here are the photos of our very first fete.
Partners Kastell and Niki totally blew us away!
Way to set that bar high!

Everything was amazingly DELICIOUS and absolutely BEAUTIFUL.
It was quite an honor to be included.

Recipes are up on the fledgling DC Gourmet Club blog so we can all share the recipes used.
Enjoy!

Lumenaria to light the way.

Looooove Frizzante! And striped straws, of course.

Yummy appetizers. LOTS of them.

Gentri, Elizabeth, Rachel

Emily and Kastell

Merianne

Oh I love spring rolls.

The Elizabeths :)

Niki, Olivia, Hillary

The table.

Wow!

Adorable clementine place cards.

Delicious mango punch.

Gorgeous flowers!

The very ambitious menu.

More decor.

This soup was soooo good.

The salad may have been my favorite, except that everything was my favorite, haha.

No seriously, everything was my favorite.

Main course: Miso Salmon with Cucumber Salad. Yeah, it tasted as good as it sounds.

The Sunset Delight drink was to die for.

Dessert: Mango Sorbet with fresh fruit and gingersnaps and Key Lime Cupcakes with Coconut Buttercream.
Yep.
It was pretty hard to fit anything in by this point, but we somehow managed. :)

The favors were packaged soooo cute:

With little potted cupcakes with marzipan leaves.

And when I got home, I opened the bag and was delighted to find a packet of seeds (how clever) and a beautiful little flower clip! (Gwyneth wore it to church the next day!)

I think heaven must be a lot like Gourmet Club.
Especially when it's not your turn to host!
:)


Note: I hope people use these images elsewhere, just please don't forget to give credit to
Elizabeth Moon Photography--'cause I work really hard on these pictures, y'all !!! :) Thanks!