you need to know this...

Oh man, we made the giant squash last night. My faculties were a bit impaired by the time it got to the table, I wish I had taken a pic. (crap, theres a theme here. I need to learn to think like a blogger)

HN's sister is in town from Portland, as is his mother from Chile. Local sister is having a kids birthday party today, so to give everyone a little break from the week, we had decided to have them over to his place for dinner. He's laid up with a bum knee, but Dr Sister and I went to town, and the masses were appropriately impressed. I'll tell you, a giant squash that has a trap door carved in it and is not only filled with food but edible itself is in fact an impressive centerpiece. Very.

It was also nice because we got to use all of the dishes he has that I like at the same time. His mom being from Chile, and him getting there or her coming up at least once a year (and a Chilean person never traveling without at least an extra suitcase worth of presents for those they are going to be visiting*) means that he has an amazing and extensive collection of dishes, handcrafted by his mother's husband's ex-wife the potter, who does incredible work. I do most of the cooking, and I do it at my house, so we don't get to use his cool shit nearly enough. So last night not only did we have dinner at his place, but we made enough food to feed a damn army and I got to break out all of my favorite dishes. Since I packed all the leftovers up in said cool dishes, I might sneak back over there and take some pictures before he dismantles it all. It won't look the same as it did last night, but it might do. Gotta be better than nothing, and you should all really see this. It was like early vegetarian thanksgiving. I did my famous roasted veggies, because HN always likes those, and I made forbidden rice (gasp!) and Dr Sister aka Dr J took over the stuffing and killed it. She used: apples, kale, almond, onion, some squash, raisins, wine, spices, mushrooms and more. Then we took the giant squash seeds, roasted them and put those and some pomegranate pods over a bed of lettuce and tossed with a balsamic for a very simple salad. Out of the park!

* = I am now in the present loop. Yay! Now I own some cool Chile dishes too! HN and everyone in his family all have these badass mugs from Lise (potter) and I'm always ogling them. HN's mother brought me 4 as one of my presents. Yay! Here are my 2 faves I think:
Lise does 3 glaze colors (that I've seen) and many styles. HN has tons with creatures on them, fishes, dinosaurs, etc so I asked for a creature one and she brought birds. The mug is circled with them and each is different but V cool. Coffee has never been so delicious. I also got another pura alpaca scarf. HN had brought me back a huge and beautiful pashmina when he went, because that's the kind of guy he is and this time his mother brought me a smaller scarf and in this crazy pink/red combo color. It's not a color I would necessarily pick out myself but she has impeccable tastes and it does work for me. Plus, it's so soft and it smells like Chile. mmmmmm

I will eventually get around to pictures of all of this. I'm going armed with my camera today, Dr J and I are heading to the farmer's market and then to the Charm City Craft Mafia's show to get our shop on. Add to that the fact that the first shipment of seahorses has come in, and it's shaping up to be a pretty ok weekend.