Is it Christmas yet?

Here in our kitchen , it is all about crab cakes and steak and pasta. Let us know if you have company coming and you need a special dinner. We bought cases of crab meat so we are makin' cakes like crazy. Four orders are being made now by customers in the front. (I am hiding in the back office)And we are selling off the over stock of shrimp. (The fish monger sent a double order and we have limited freezer space). Lots of folks think $12 a bag for 2 pounds of raw clean, no tail shrimp a good deal. Shrimp cocktail for everyone!

This is hectic around town too..with everyone trying to finish last minute shopping. I tried to drive thru the village of Maplewood yesterday. It was so packed! I just have two more gifts and I am done.

Are you thinking of New Years Resolutions? My very first one is that I am making fresh hummus for all our parties. Today's batch is irresistible.

Happy Christmas to all
Mary

Ice

How beautiful the ice was this morning! and how dangerous it has been in the past 24 hours. Just a reminder of the beauty and the danger of Mother Nature. She is not a sad old broad in a rocking chair.

Me and mine we settled in with a Cheeseburger meatloaf and Saturday Night Live Holiday Show. DinnerSmith and TIVO: what a great life. Other people we heard from were having the stew and staying inside listening to the trees crack. I hope everyone is ok and getting ready for this weekend storm! Spagetti pie anyone? I know it is not on the menu but I am putting a bunch in the freezer. It takes me an hour in the oven from rock solid frozen to yummy on the table.

If you having a tough time getting the holidays organized, one of our customers sent us this link. http://organizedchristmas.com/ I love this kind of stuff , the more organizing help i can get the greater the chance something will stick.

Mary

The Holidays are here

Here at DinnerSmith we are celebrating both Christmas and Hanukkah...a fun and busy month of food and family.

What a great night we had Thursday! A group of moms from the Wyoming School in Milburn came in for a fundraiser for the PTO. It was great fun and we met a whole group of fun friendly people. These Milburn mons worked furiously and laughed a lot.

Then Friday we had another great group who came to celebrate Amanda’s second baby. What a warm group of friends: it was a nice evening with great food and lots of pink balloons. There was also a great group photo with everyone piled on the new couch. It’s really comfy place to sit and talk to a friend.

The surprise hit of the month is Sopa Seca. This is a Mexican dish suggested by Laura Valle Fran’s daughter who interned in Mexico last summer. It is a yummy spicy noodle casserole with shredded turkey. You will hear about it because there are tons being ordered by folks all over town.

Today we started work on the party food ordered for next weekend. Some folks have a lot of family visiting and others have potluck to go to. Beef Stew and Lasagna for everyone. LOL

For Vayniacs Only!

The Dinnersmiths are bonified Vayniacs!

Last 5 Wines Tasted on Wine Library TV

Changing the wine world.

We discovered someone in our area that we think is fabulous. Have you heard about Gary from the Wine Library? For those of us who are new to the area, this is a fascinating story of how a young guy uses his passion and the Web to help his family’s small business into a global enterprise.

Apart from the story, this is a great place to learn specifically and generally about wine. The link we have here is to the videos that Gary puts up on the web. He calls this enterprise Wine Library TV. So far almost 400 of these videos. I loved his presentation and his opinions. See what he has to say about the Trader Joe wines on Dec 5. I wanted to share this with our customers because I think that most of us could use the help and advice in an easy to access format. Let me know!

Mary ( Fran says that since we will all be posting, we will be putting our names on our posts)