Pink Inspiration to Shoo Away Winter Blahs

The cold swooped into Jackson Hole today, as it did in most of the country, and because I’ve been bundled up and inside I’ve been imagining a party that is springy, girly, happy and filled with joy – i.e., PINK!

Now, I’m not really a pink kind of girl. I rarely use the color and even more rarely wear it, but in the right situation and with the exact right shade of pink, it works for me. And it works even better in the dead of cold, hideous winter when everyone wants some warmth and friendliness in their life. This shade of perfectly pale pink gives winter some color without being garishly too much.

Pink Luncheon

The pinks, gold, touches of glass green and a little cheery yellow/orange make me so happy!

I would use this color scheme for a girls luncheon, a baby shower, or for a more uncommon gathering, an afternoon tea for absolutely no good reason at all. Wouldn’t it be lovely to cover the table in a very pale pink tablecloth and gold candlesticks, then use a few tiny bud vases filled with kosher salt to hold up lollipops and name cards (or if you’re really ambitious, as in the inspiration board: cupcake pops)? I’d add just a few touches of green or blue glass vases or water glasses for some pop against the pink, et voila – you’re done. Nothing to it.

Add some friends, an assortment of tea sandwiches and champagne with a raspberry at the bottom of the glass, and it’ll be a lovely party.

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Lucky Meal for the New Year Dinner Party

Happy New Year!

I have a strong feeling this is going to be a good year. I feel it. I wish the best for each of you with a fresh start and renewed energy, and I look forward to sharing many gorgeous and yummy things with all of you here in the next year.

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www.goodhousekeeping.com

Epicurous has a lovely description of lucky foods from around the world to usher in a most lucky 2010 – and Nancy, my step-grandma, cooked the Southern ones here: collard greens for lots of greenbacks and black-eyed peas for pocket change, she said! I took hasty photos with my iphone and then lost it the next day in I’m not sure which snowboarding tumble in roughly three feet of heavy powder. So no photos from me, and I have to go buy a new phone today.

I’m a midwesterner – now New Yorker – and have absolutely no instincts in my blood for real down home cooking, so it’s all new to me. When Nancy made these dishes last year, I found out that traditionally you cook collard greens with ham hock! I never knew there were dishes with meat in them that didn’t specify that there was, in fact, meat in them. My poor little non-ham-eating heart was shocked. So she substituted chicken broth for the ham for my sister and I and it may not have been strictly traditional, but it was damn good. This year, she actually started three days before, when she cooked the collard greens and then set them in a ziploc bag in the garage to keep cool and steep. Two days before, she put the black-eyed peas in a huge bowl of water to soak, and then the day of she made grits. You could make them with veggie broth just as well, for a nice vegetarian meal.

ChampagneYou could make this lucky New Years meal anytime during the year – nothing wrong with a little luck in April or August, presented with full New Years flair of gold and silver all over the place. Anytime you need a fresh start and a little favor with the gods, it would make a great dinner party and would be so happily different from the usual holidays at the usual times. Give everyone New Years hats and noisemakers, and celebrate each person’s rebirth in whatever way they want! It could be a lovely addition to a happiness group or to cheer someone up.

Arbor Inspiration

This fall I went to the Central Park Conservatory Garden for the first time, and I was so struck by the beauty of the half-circle arbor covered in greenery.

I know it’s a slightly strange obsession, but I absolutely love arbors covered in greenery.  Flower arbors somehow don’t do it for me – too Laura Ashley, I think.  I confess that I had to even look up what arbors are called; for a while I was just calling them “those green covered things that I love,” but you know what, it’s not the name that matters as long as people get what you’re talking about.  Or so I tell myself.  Anyway, now I know thy name is arbor.

I love this arbor too, which is also in Central Park.

Arbors like these make me desperately want to host a small garden dinner party under the archway, with long wood tables covered only in white hydrangeas and potted plants, white dinnerware, rustic family-style food, and zillions of white pillar candles.  Dinner would begin at dusk, just when you start needing the candles, and there would undoubtedly be acoustic music of some kind imbuing the atmosphere without much trouble on anybody’s part.  The wine would be one of those gorgeous bottles you vow to remember the name of and always forget, and the conversation would flow beautifully amongst friends.

Large image my own of the Central Park Conservatory; images on right from Martha Stewart Weddings

Under the Arbor Menu (to be passed family style; no delineated courses)

Winter White and Lace

From one of my favorite blogs, Snippet and Ink, which has inspiration boards of the most gorgeous color combinations – and I’m just so obsessed with this simple wintry juxtaposition of white, cream, and evergreen:

446-evergreen-wedding-decor-winter-wedding-ideasSnippet and Ink

This inspiration board is for a wedding, obviously, but would be so easily transformed into dinner party decor with a crisp white tablecloth, an ivory lace runner down the table for a little old world flavor, and simple glass or milk glass vases with only greenery in them – or maybe a creamy/almost yellow-colored flower or two.  I’d add candles candles candles up the wazoo to light up the white for a dinner, or just a few votives for a brightly sunlight winter white lunch.

Decorating (semi-)Dinner Party

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Caroline and Alanna made these incredibly-decorated cupcakes for Halloween, and when I saw the photos I begged to be able use them on BB&B. They are gorgeous and so so SO creative! Maybe they’ll let me convince them to give us a decorating workshop before next Halloween.

cupcake mosaic

Wouldn’t a cupcake decorating party would be so cute and kitschy? Not only for Halloween but for Christmas decorating or really any holiday. The cupcakes could be combined with cookie decorating or gingerbread house-making for a true extravaganza of icing and tiny candies.

Serve simple tea sandwiches (cream cheese and smoked salmon, cucumber, egg salad) and fruit for something to nosh on other than pure sugar, and lots of mulled wine to spark the creative process and make the house smell like the winter holidays have arrived. I love this vignette on mulled wine about being drunk under the table by a 90-year-old woman, and I haven’t tried the recipe but it sounds both a) lovely and b) lethal. Neither of which I have a problem with.

Thank you again to Alanna and Caroline for sharing these gorgeous cupcakes!

Gingerbread Mouse

Living in the Woods and Making Stuff

Living in the Woods and Making Stuff

If this doesn’t put you in the spirit of holiday cheer and whimsy, well, good luck with life. My oldest friend, Torrey, knows everything about cooking and knitting and anything home-related – and as a twist on a classic gingerbread house she made this absolutely incredible marzipan mouse in a gingerbread matchbox! I couldn’t love it more. It is so creative and lovely, just like everything else she cooks up. You absolutely must look at the process she went through to create every tiny detail. Look at how the peppermints are lined up alternating vertically and horizontally to make the blanket, or how the mouse’s ears are pink on the inside, or how with just a tiny hint of a suggestion of red pajamas your mind fills the rest in. Scrumptious in every way.

It makes me want to, you know, at least decorate some Christmas cookies, or eat an entire batch of gingerbread as an homage to her creativity . . . could I stick some chocolate chips in the shape of a smiley face on a spoonful of peanut butter and call it good?!

Equestrian Inspiration

Design Lovely on This Is Glamorous

This photograph is so simple and the three colors just jumped out at me.  The green and brown colors of a fields and horses would make a lovely table, but what strikes me most about this photograph is the juxtaposition of the refined and girly white dress against those colors.  The white is the element that would make a table pop and make it more Out of Africa than Lonesome Dove.

I actually already have a green-and-white equestrian themed tablecloth – don’t ask me why; I was looking on Etsy one day and got excited – and I would cover it with small tan or brown bud vases holding simple fluffy white flowers.  For a more rustic theme, you could put the flowers in aluminun cans wrapped in luxurious chocolate brown ribbons.  Natural light would display these colors best, so I would use this color scheme for a special lunch rather than drown out the colors in dinner darkness.

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