Tablescaping: Thanksgiving for Two

It was a special thrill to setting our table with my great-grandmother's napkins, sparkling new crystal, the china Adam and I found together in an antique shop, the handsome silverware that I first blogged about over two years ago, and white pumpkins left over from our wedding. It amused me to look at those two place settings and think that I could serve as many as twelve. I love the idea of having a big, noisy Thanksgiving at my house- maybe next year!

But this year I'm content to enjoy a quiet newlywed holiday. Today I'll walk down to the flower stand while my pie is in the oven. Tomorrow I'll light candles and pour two glasses of wine while Adam carves our cider-brined turkey. It's easy to see how much we have to be grateful for.

Happy Thanksgiving, my friends. See you on Monday!

xoxo

Elizabeth

Tablescaping for a Tea Party

We modern girls are so accustomed to gulping down our caffeine on the go, out of a paper cup, no less!

Wouldn't a tea party be a luxurious change of pace? 

My great-grandma's good china is fussy (and fragile!) so I cobbled together a more casual tea service out of eclectic white ceramics. A flea market tin offers tasty hamentaschen and Adam's vintage toy milk truck is loaded up with condiments with for a witty way to pass the cream. 

It isn't terribly difficult to find an excuse to sip Earl Grey and savor conversation. Book club? Client meeting? Set the table with pretty paper placemats and a bouquet of freshly sharpened pencils for jotting down notes. Keep the water hot and the refreshments at hand, and linger over good ideas.

Do you have an occasion that needs some tablescaping inspiration? Email me at shockthebourgeois@mac.com!

Happy Easter Weekend

It's Easter, and Adam couldn't resist a well-priced (and downright enormous) hunk of ham. What the heck, let's host a luncheon. Last year I did the pastel garden party thing- pretty, but predictable. I've invited over some thoroughly modern friends, so I thought I'd put together a tablescape to match. 

The mod runner is a fabric remnant that plays well with my caned chairs. Keeping the palette black and white lets me feature rabbits and fanciful details without getting too frou-frou. My tiny pedestal dishes add some height to each place setting, and if I get truly motivated tomorrow, they'll each hold a colorfully dyed Easter egg. Perhaps as place cards, like so?

So that's what I'm up to this weekend- tidying up the place and cooking a ham I can barely lift! What are your plans for Easter?

Until Monday,

Elizabeth

The WarLock Wedding: Seating Arrangements

My family can attest to fact that on each of our wedding venue tours, I asked one question...

"Can we bring in different chairs?"

I suppose it won't surprise my readers that my dare-to-dream wedding fantasies have centered around furniture. I envision an autumn evening, dark flowers, flickering candlelight, and a room full of graceful golden chairs.

Where slipcovered conference chairs merely add bulk, these chairs are an airy complement to my elegant (and slightly gothic) theme. However, Chiavari chairs can be an expensive rental- and I'd never choose chairs over the guests sitting in them!

Doesn't it seem fateful, then, that the venue we've selected already has hundreds of gold chiavari chairs at the ready? Meant to be!

PS: For those of you wondering, "WarLock" is a combination of our last names (Adam Wargacki & Elizabeth Lockhart). In my opinion, it's another thing that's meant to be, but for some crazy reason Adam seems reluctant to use WarLock as our married name...

Ferd the Bird

The blog may be quiet this week, but my apartment is certainly not! Adam and I are hosting a Thanksgiving feast, and the preparations have definitely thrown my OCD switch. Totally normal to rearrange your bedroom furniture in expectation of dinner guests, right?

We finished our grocery shopping this week, and Adam and I spent more time interacting with potential turkeys than we did with potential new kittens (Phineas was an easy choice, obviously). After a lot of weighing and examining, we chose a hefty young bird, toted him home, and named him Ferdinand. I'm training him to be delicious.

Ferdinand is being brined, so I keep peeking to see how he's enjoying his salty apple cider bath. Every time I take the lid off our pets appear, eagerly sniffing.

Isn't that the most gloriously full refrigerator you've ever seen? 

The cats agree. "If we pull this off, we'll eat like kings!"

Tildy the Cat is dying to get her paws on Ferd the Bird.

LOL. "I can haz Tanksgivins?"

Okay, back to work. Pies to bake, cranberry sauce to make, a linen closet to reorganize (hey, it's possible that someone might look!). 

How We Turned Things Around for Halloween

As I pouted on Friday, our Halloween Party got axed when the attendees dwindled. To add insult to injury, my Tildy-Pumpkin's face caved in. The perfect Halloween that I had envisioned was literally crumbling- and so was I!

I'm getting to know myself fairly well. I'm a perfectionist. I like to plan. I'm not always graceful about disappointment. I'm also realizing that "perfect or not at all" isn't the best philosophy for happiness. 

So this is how we turned things around for Halloween.

First, I literally turned our pumpkin around.

Then, Adam coerced/guilted/bribed/bullied a handful of coworkers into coming over for drinks and snacks on Friday after work. In the hour before our guests arrived we whipped up some guacamole, corn salsa, goat cheese bruschetta, a batch of salty-spicy-sweet toasted pumpkin seeds, and a cinnamon apple crumble. We lit some candles, and we had a party. Was it the costume party I'd imagined? No. Did my guests stand around and talk about science, thereby boring me to death? Kinda, yes.

But we had a good time (and my guacamole was really tasty).

For the rest of the weekend we were without any plans, so we donned our costumes, took the Bart to San Francisco, and found ourselves in the midst of a Giants/Halloween celebration. Plenty of orange and black, many beards to fear, blaring horns, dozens of Mario + Luigi pairings, and what we hope was just a pipe bomb. California knows how to party!

Adam's costume was indiscriminately creepy. Vampire? Werewolf? Zombie? Miscellaneous undead creature? It was open for interpretation, and judging by how few people dared to look him in the eye, it was a success.

 I went as a Mad Men-inspired secretarial type.

All in all, a good Halloween! How was yours?

Party Fouled

The WarLock Family's Halloween Party has been cancelled! Turns out that not even pie and free booze can distract our Bay Area friends from something else orange and black this year.

Which means that I have swathed my house in cobwebs for nothing.

Even Tom sheds a tear. A single molten tear.

Boo!

Halloween at the WarLock House

Only a few days left until our Halloween party, and I'm scurrying around to make our house look appropriately haunted.

Our pumpkin continues the "Matilda WarLock's Ornery Face" theme. For those of you who haven't had the pleasure of meeting my Tildy-Cat, this requires some explanation. Tildy has been, since kittenhood, an unfortunate combination of intelligence and malevolence. When crafting our party invitations, I pictured Matilda's expression right before she pushes something valuable off of a shelf. It was the scariest thing I could think of!

Pumpkin carving is a serious tradition in my family, and my efforts fell far short of my Dad's past masterpieces (I can remember people posing their trick-or-treating kids for photos next to our pumpkins every year). I carved a day or two too early, and the wet weather has already eroded what were crisp lines and precise pinholes. Oh well! If it turns to glop before the party, I'll just show the guests a picture.

An adorably wicked welcoming committee, don't you think?

You're Invited (If you DARE)

The First Annual WarLock Family Halloween Extravaganza looms on the horizon! This morning was spent assembling the invitations, which feature Tildy WarLock's grumpy question mark face...

Did I doubt my sanity as I painstakingly snipped each tiny whisker? Clearly, yes.

My perfectionism boggles the mind.

If you're a Bay Area blogger, blog-reader or general party person, would you dare attend our Extravaganza? Say boo if you'd like an invite!

Hot as Hell

I spent the summer whining about how cold I was. Now we've transitioned into fall, and into a new complaint: it's so freaking hot! What is up with the climate in this bass-ackwards state?? We've even had to delay the next installment of Adam's Soup Series because I don't want to eat anything that isn't a popsicle.

Yesterday I made a pitcher of iced tea to combat my afternoon caffeine stupor and the killer heat. I chilled it with skulls and crossbones from my Bone Chillers Ice Cube Tray. 

I clearly don't need chilly weather to get me in a Halloweeny mood. I'm starting to plan for a Halloween cocktail party (would any of you Bay Area bloggers be interested in an invite?), and I'll surely be popping some of these creepy gems into intoxicating concoctions...