Supper Club

Our supper club Saturday night was great fun. Of course, I was a little on edge and snapped at my loving and patient family (don't worry, I apologized) as we cleaned the house and prepared the food. I self-admittedly get a little tense when company comes. I'm not OCD, but you might think so on these occasions. Matt was so glad the house was looking nice, that he snapped some photos of our spiffed up crib.

Here's a candlelit view of the table. I hollowed out the big white pumpkin and placed a vase full of Trader Joe's flowers in the center.

"Aerial" view. Of course, I had not put out the napkins, silverware or glasses yet, but oh well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here's a close-up of my pumpkin place card holders. I spray painted all my pumpkins and gourds gold a la Eddie Ross. I just grabbed some leaves from the yard and scribbled on the names with a sharpie, then cut a slit in the pumpkins

Side note: some of the little pumpkins on the table came from our own little pumpkin patch. Our house backs up to woods, so last year when we were done with our pumpkins, we simply tossed them over the fence thinking the deer could eat what was left. Well, apparently, some seeds took root and this year we got about 5 pumpkins off the vine. Pretty cool.

And on the menu, Rosemary Rib Roast. It was delicious. Probably a little more rare than I intended because my meat thermometer malfunctioned.

I typically don't have recipes on my blog because I don't usually cook anything that interesting, but I pull out all the stops for special occasions. My friend Becky forwarded this recipe to me. It's one she got out of Southern Living years ago and makes every Christmas. I loved how easy it was to prepare! Here it is . . . 

 

Rosemary Rib Roast

Have the butcher remove the chine bone, and then tie it back on--this will give you the flavor from the bone, but allow you to easily remove it for carving.

Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 1 hour, 35 minutes
Stand: 50 minutes
Yield: Makes 8 servings

Ingredients
6  garlic cloves, pressed
2  teaspoons  salt
2  teaspoons  pepper
1  teaspoon  crushed rosemary
2  tablespoons  olive oil
1  (7-pound) 4-rib prime rib roast, chine bone removed
1  cup  sour cream
2  tablespoons  lemon juice
2  tablespoons  horseradish
Preparation

Combine first 5 ingredients in a small bowl; rub over roast. Let stand at room temperature 30 minutes.

Bake roast at 450° for 45 minutes on lower rack of oven. Reduce temperature to 350°, and bake roast 45 to 50 additional minutes or until a meat thermometer registers 145° (medium-rare) or 160° (medium). Let roast stand 20 minutes.

Combine sour cream, lemon juice, and horseradish; serve with roast.

That's it . . . easy peasy.

 

We're off to Memphis tomorrow to visit the cousins, aunt, uncle and grandparents. I'll be busy doing laundry and packing tonight. Some light reading I'll be taking along . . . 

And some not so light reading . . .

I'm more than halfway through this book and hope to finish it over the holiday. Some of the reader reviews on Amazon were less than favorable, but I'm actually enjoying it. Call me a contrarian.

Hope everyone has a safe and Happy Thanksgiving!

Note: Some of you asked if I got the chairs from Habitat. The answer is no. I haven't even had a chance to go back there. Secondly, I have put myself on a self-imposed chair diet. I have too many as it is. This could change next week.

Has It Come to This?

Let me be clear. I love a lot of magazines. This is not one of them. I never subscribed to Woman's Day. However, unfortunately, it showed up in my mailbox a few days ago. It wasn't a surprise. I received an all too familiar postcard informing me that yet another publication to which I had subscribed was now defunct and this rag would be taking its place.


A common source of angst and frustration for lovers of interior design and a hot topic in the blogosphere has been the demise of too many wonderful shelter magazines over the past year or two. Ad revenues are down, so beloved publications are now just a memory . . . a sad epitaph to these trying economic times. I hate to sound melodramatic, but my mood soured after looking through the aforementioned piece of crap. To put it kindly, it sucks. Or blows . . . whichever is worse. I'm sorry if I've offended any lovers of Woman's Day, but I'm actually amazed and a little perturbed that this publication has survived while so many better ones have fallen.


So, how did I end up with Woman's Day? How did this sad downward spiral start? It all began with one of my favorite design magazines, Domino.

 

Oh, Domino, how I miss thee. As Penelope Green of The New York Times wrote, "Domino magazine captured an aesthetic, and a readership, that was emblematic of a fizzy, girlish moment in design." I couldn't agree more. Now, the fizz is gone.


After Domino folded in April 2009, I think its publishers started sending me Metropolitan Home instead. I say "think" because my memory is playing tricks on me. But I believe that's how I started getting Met Home as I don't remember subscribing.

Okay . . . that was fine. While Met Home was a little modern for my taste, at least it was an interior design magazine. Well, predictably enough, Metropolitan Home folded toward the end of 2009.


In MH's place, I started to receive Cookie which was sort of a hip parenting/lifestyle mag.

While I wasn't swooning over Cookie, it had some redeeming qualities. Sort of a cross between Real Simple, Martha Stewart and Parents. I thought it was acceptable. I'm a parent. I'm somewhat hip. But, guess what? It's one of the latest victims of the publishing world's smackdown. That's how the Cookie crumbled (sorry, couldn't resist).


So now . . . Woman's Day?! Really? Has anyone seen this publication? Maybe in a waiting room somewhere? It's a disaster. And that's being kind. I majored in journalism (not that you can tell from my complete lack of adherence to AP style), so I'm not just speaking from the perspective of an interior design junkie. The editorial content is abysmal. The layout is so bad I can't tell where the ads end and the actual copy begins. It's printed on the flimsiest paper (a la Better Homes and Gardens) that feels one step up from tissue paper making it even more unappealing to flip through. And I would say 85% of the content is pharmaceutical ads. I guess that explains it. If you throw in a few tips (50 Things to Do with $5) with your ads you can pay for your publication. Otherwise, forget it, your magazine is destined for that recycle bin in the sky.


I think I'm going to save a few trees and request that whatever WD subscription I have left be forfeited. In the meantime, I'll enjoy my two favorite design magazines -- Elle Decor and House Beautiful -- and hope they don't meet the fate of some of their sister shelter publications. May they rest in peace.

 Sources: NY Times online, Media Bistro, Conde Nast, Hachette Filipacchi