Friday morning, I took a brief break from wedding ministrations for breakfast with Vinny at Cafe on the Common.



Vinny and I enjoyed people-watching. This spot was surprisingly hopping for 8:00 on a weekday morning.



Vin ordered the combo breakfast with eggs, bacon, sausage, and blueberry pancakes. I sampled, obviously.

I had been debating between the large and small oatmeal and asked the server for her opinion. I am glad she advised me to go for the small — it was bigger than my head! Let’s take another look at my yummy yummy banana walnut oats with brown sugar on the side:

After breakfast, it was back to the Gunns. Centerpieces under construction:



And Siobhan continued her work on the cake. Bottom tier:



Middle tier:



Top tier:



Siobhan also undertook this crazy ambitious pumpkin cage cake-topper that involved drizzling caramelized sugar over foil wrapped pumpkin molds:



The concept blew me away. Look how cool:



Jess jumped in for the assist to piece the halves together:



Sadly, the cage ended up melting 😦 We had been not been expecting 70 degree temps for October 31! It was fun while it lasted, though.

In the late morning, Erin, Catherine, and I went to the wedding site for the “official drop” of centerpieces and other wedding party accessories. After the drop, I borrowed Erin’s car for a grocery store run and then headed to my mom’s house to make use of the kitchen … and her assistance!



Erin wanted an afternoon tea for Saturday to fuel all of us ladies while we got ready for the wedding, and she put me in charge. I spent the majority of Friday afternoon creating the menu and doing the legwork (or directing my mom in doing the legwork :-P).



While mom sliced and de-crusted the bread, I mixed up all the fillings and got started on the dessert …



… of dark chocolate covered strawberries, special request of the bride!



Once the tea menu was under control, I threw together scraps from my various projects for a quick snack with mom: cucumber, granny smith apple, almond butter, and melted dark chocolate.



From there, I swept back up to the Gunns to collect Erin and make our way to the official rehearsal dinner Monster Mash!

Top three tea sandwich fillings? See if you can guess which ones I made 🙂

OK, it is finally time to move into the sequence of wedding events. (And in case you have not been paying attention, I am referring to Erin Gunn’s wedding and not my own!). I took Thursday and Friday off work so that I could head up to MA and fulfill my bridesmaid duties properly. My parents picked me up at the bus in Providence and chauffeured me right over to the Gunn household, where I began by watching the master at work:



Mmmmmhmmm, that is Erin’s sister Siobhan hard at work on a project involving my favorite ingredient … canned pumpkin!



And she was working on creating my favorite baking result: wedding cake!



Of course, Siobhan had to level the tops of the cakes for stackability … and that meant pumpkin cake scraps:



More 😀 I love hanging out with the Gunns.



Lily got in on the cake scraps action:



And once again made her ancestors proud. Pacifier in mommy’s wine glass:



Like mother, like daughter. Pacifier in mouth:



While the others were getting sloshed, I actually started work on an actual job (with tons of help from the ever-reliable groom). Place card creation:



And then it was time for dinner: french bread and dog food.



Just kidding! Erin’s family put on a brilliant spread, beginning with olives:



Continuing with lasagna:



And Swedish meatballs!



Kevin being the epitome of class, as usual 😛



I loaded my plate like so (and followed it up with a second plate!):



For dessert, I accidentally got into the basket of Halloween candy intended for the under-12 crowd at the wedding:



Believe me, it did not stop at half a peanut butter cup! Up next: day two of last minute wedding preparations.

In your opinion, when is the best time to eat Halloween candy: before, during, or after the holiday?

Last weekend was FINALLY the moment that you’ve all been waiting for: Erin Gunn’s wedding … a.k.a. the OMGiactuallyhavetowearthistoosmalldressivebeenpanickedaboutformonths event. So, did it fit?? Did it not fit??? Hint:



More to come soon!

First, I need to give a little update on the goings on at work.



Could it be??? Another table full of food?!

Friday was Jennifer’s last day at work and, in her honor, we did what we do best (aside from saving babies, of course) and ate 😀

Jennifer’s eyes went wide with delight when she walked into the second floor nursery room where we had been diligently stocking the snack time table:



Jennifer’s view:



It’s a wonder she did not just topple right over!

Next, her eyes slid to the left …



Mmmmmhmmm, you KNOW we didn’t forget about the desserts:



(Nydia’s cheese, Andra’s cheesecake, Lorraine’s chocolate cake, Heather’s fruit salad)

So, clockwise from top left: Belkis’ spaghetti with sauce (and the bowl in front is Jessica’s ground beef to accompany it), Inginia’s chicken mole and white rice, Nitza’s artichoke lasagna, Allan’s KFC (hidden from view), my sweet potato, red onion, and fontina tart, chips and salsa, Barbara’s peanutty cabbage slaw, Deborah’s tamales de pollo (from the street), and Pansy’s curried chicken:



Ahhhh, crazy feast!!! I don’t know why I even bother eating on my off work hours at this point.

Anyway, let’s just back up a second to my sweet potato, red onion, and fontina tart. I got this recipe from Eating Well magazine (thanks again, Brandi!) and knew I had to make it ASAP, especially when I ended up with four giant sweet potatoes from my CSA. The only changes I made were in the crust. I used hazelnuts and brazil nuts in place of walnuts (it’s a rough life, I know), and I mixed the whole wheat pastry flour with regular whole wheat flour instead of with all-purpose. The dough needed a little extra water, but everything ended up turning out perfectly:



The tart got demolished at Jennifer’s lunch, and I helped:



I’d split a tamal earlier in the day with Deborah, so I skipped those and loaded my plate with nearly everything else: chicken mole, artichoke lasagna, my tart, curried chicken, peanutty cabbage slaw …

Nitza’s lasagna was INSANE. The big chunks of artichoke wrapped up in the creamy ricotta and tomato sauce with fresh basil, ahhhhhh. I so had seconds of that.



And I could not forget a little pile of Jessica’s ground beef on top of Belkis’ spaghetti. This might have been the best ground beef I have ever tasted. how was it so crispy???



Everyone ate and ate and ate and ate:





And then it was time for dessert!



Well really, it was time for me to go to class, and I couldn’t leave without dessert, obviously. So I had to get the ball rolling. I filled a bowl with slivers of the chocolate cake and cheesecake, a dollop of Pansy’s ambrosia, and a mountain of fruit salad. Mmmmmmmm. Thank goodness I had to leave and was therefore unable to have seconds, thirds, fourths, fifths, and sixths.

Jennifer, good luck on your next adventure. We will miss you!

.

It’s like me. But in cookie form 😛

That homemade piggy cookie arrived for me courtesy of Jose, who received a baggie of them on one of his regular jaunts through the agency. You see the kind of food that accosts me at work every second? Imagine that times 10 million, and that’s what the approximately three men who work for my agency have to face every millisecond. My coworkers love to feed me, but they love to feed men even more.

As hard as it was to return from vacation last week, I have to admit that I found this sight incredibly comforting:

The fruits of Belkis’ apple-picking adventure are still alive and well, thank heavens!

And our food pantry never seems to run out of peanut butter, thank heavens times two!!

And the conference room table keeps overflowing with deliciously useless junk:

(banana moon pie, entenmann’s brownies and chocolate frosted donuts, blueberry almond cheesecake)

And the birthdays keep coming:

(tres leches cake for Julia and Luis’ birthdays)

And the food demonstrations keep going:

And Jose keeps hunting them down:

(Jose with fish tacos!)

And then Rosalie changed my life with this:

I thought it was just a regular roll, but no. It was an almojábana, apparently the pillowyest cheesiest bread EVER baked.

I’m not exaggerating when I say it changed my life. Oink.

Do you have any recent life-changing oink moments?

I made sure to arrange my trip so that it would leave me with a three-day weekend for recovery and re-adjustment, and I did not waste any time filling those final days of freedom with delicious food … and delicious company!

My friend Pamela was in town for the weekend, so she, Gina, and I met at Dizzy‘s on Friday morning for a rare weekday brunch. Pamela ordered the pistachio-encrusted French toast with caramelized bananas:



I had about five bites while Pamela lectured Gina and me on reproductive rights.



Ahhhh, that picture. Insane.

Gina ordered this omelet:



I don’t remember what was in it, but it was tasty!

I wanted a big bowl of rainy day comfort and ordered the apple cinnamon oats. Big was an understatement. I would estimate at least two cups of oats right here:



The oats held me over for the entire day and right through karate that night. They probably would have continued to hold me over until the next morning if Erik and I had not walked right into a beautiful vegetarian feast at our coworker Ray’s apartment after class:



Ray and his wife Alicia had prepared dinner to fuel the five of us (Jose was also there!) through yet another endless night with the Yanks. All was going fine until Jose bumped into the table, spilling half of the tomato-basil-feta salad on the floor. We had a moment of silence for the loss …



… and then carried on. Here’s my plate with homemade black bean burgers, pasta salad, salvaged tomato-basil-feta salad, and shredded cabbage and garbanzo salad:



I was so relieved to be fed healthy food at someone else’s house … especially after the crazy food week I’d had with all of the wedding festivities.

Saturday morning involved a series of unfortunate events and subway mishaps that deposited me at the CSA too late to collect my veggies! I almost cried. I felt especially bummed because I was in charge of collecting for both Kate and me that weekend, and missing the pickup meant that she was out a week’s worth of veggies, too. I felt like a CSA sharing failure 😦

After feeling sorry for myself for a minute, though, I put my chin up and raced over to the farmers’ market at Grand Army Plaza for all sorts of late fall goodies. I texted Kate that I was on the produce case and then busied myself with collecting apples, green beans, purple kale, broccoli, fennel, sweet potatoes, butternut squash, turnips, kabocha, parsnips, and an apple cider donut:



Did you catch that last part? AN APPLE CIDER DONUT:



Mmmmmmmmmmm. Can I have another one right now, please? Yes, summer is definitely over now. Fall is here to stay.



With the chilly week, I gladly returned to my oatmealy mornings of days past:



Really, apple-cinnamon-cardamom-flax oats with peanut butter made the return to work SO much easier.



Other things that made the return to work easier …

Morning pow wows at the conference room table, complete with snacks and gossip:





Group lunches containing everything from my massaged kale salad and roasted winter squash to Deborah’s octopus to tostadas from the Juice Bar to Belkis’ yuca and olives:



Mmmmm pulpo:



The best part of that lunch happened when Deborah reached across the table to grab one of these almonds from my napkin and wasted no time in expediting it to her mouth …



… so fast that no one could tell her in time that they were not almonds but the pits of my olives!!!!!! Ohhhhhh Deborah. She redeemed herself with a giant bite of tostada and a Hershey’s bar.



What is the last non-edible thing that you accidentally tried to eat?