First Time Failures

An extremely slick hotel photographer coerced my friend and I into a photo shoot while we were in Punta Cana.  We have a problem with saying no to people.  What’s not pictured is our abject embarrassment and the beach full of people staring at us.  Let’s just say that this was one of the more….normal shots in the series.  My family never takes vacations that aren’t full of jam-packed days so it was a completely different experience to do the relaxing, only eating and lounging around thing.  I did try something new in Punta Cana, but a pact to never talk about what happened has since been made, so I won’t be going into detail here.  Let’s just say it fits in with the original failure theme of this blog.  I’m just glad there’s no documentation of what occurred.

But alas now it’s back to the east coast where leaving my bed in the morning seems like a suicide mission.  Thanks goodness I have amazing friends to help with the transition back to TOTAL AND UTTER MISERY.  We celebrated New Years Eve together and then had a dinner party a couple days later.  The theme was supposed to be tiny foods so I decided to make a small puff pastry shell with an artichoke dip filling.  My first attempt was a massive fail.  I didn’t realize I’d need to roll out the puff pastry so it was way too big and also spread too much.  The centers collapsed after I pulled them out of the oven, something the puff pastry packaging told me would result if they were under-baked.  

My second attempt was much better, though none of them were uniform in size.  Look, there they are!  I ended up making phyllo dough shelled ones too.  As you can see we didn’t quite stick to the tiny foods things.  I feel like it was more of a cheese themed dinner party.  We’re cheese obsessed.  There was a pesto cheese spread and Smitten Kitchen’s walnut pesto, in which my friend decided to put 3 times the amount of cheese listed in the recipe.  I think the chicken and rice (from the 53rd and 6th cart!) didn’t have a disturbing amount of cheese in it.  One of my friends made heart-shaped apple and savory versions of Luxirare’s lollipop pies.  Almost too cute to eat.  J, if you’re reading this, send me the close-up so I can post it here. So cute and delicious!

I couldn’t think of a better way to end or start a year.  I mean, there are some things that we’d like to forget ever happen.  A few “incidents” that we’ll never speak of again.  A few images that we hope never see the light of day.  But still, an awesome time.  Maybe we’ll look back on it all someday and laugh!  Or not….