Tasha Tudor Potluck

♫We Three Kings♫

The Maryland Chapter of the Tasha Tudor Museum Society held a potluck dinner the other night to celebrate Twelfth Night (only it was Ninth Night in our case).  The receipts (Tasha's New England word for recipe) all came from her cookbook.  Those who were able to attend took home a recipe at our last gathering and prepared one of the following:

• Nancy's Hot Cheese Rounds
• Stuffed Eggs
• Salad with French Dressing
• Baking-Powder Biscuits
• Beef Stew
• Pineapple Upside-Down Cake
• Chocolate Cookies

Each member was to bring a guest.  Those who came brought their husband.  Unfortunately two couples had to bow out due to change of plans or illness, so I set the table for ten. . . .

. . . .but the spouse of one of our members was unable to come, so we ended up having nine at our table.

The evening began with the appetizers in the living room. . . .

I typed up a list of Ice Breaker questions and asked people to find out something interesting about another person to share later. . . .

• What are your favorite hobbies?
• What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever eaten?
• If you could visit any place in the world, where would you choose to go and why?
• Do you prefer: dogs vs. cats, books vs. movies, sweet vs. salty, casual vs. dress up, inside vs. outside; be on the stage performing vs. in the audience watching, nature vs. cities?
• Tell the other person two truths about yourself and one wish. That is, something that is not true — yet something that up wish to be true. For example, someone that has never been to Europe might say: “I often travel to Europe for vacation.”  Then the other person has to guess what is true and what is just a wish.

When everything was ready I called everyone into dinner.  We started with the salad, then moved on to the Beef Stew.  Tasha recommended that the biscuits be put in the bowl with the stew on top. . . .

Before I served each dish I shared what Tasha had to say about it in her recipe book.  For instance, she said that the French Dressing was one of her favorite specialities.  This is what she had to say about the stuffed eggs. . . .

For Nancy's Hot Cheese Rounds she shared this. . . .

As we finished our meal I informed everyone that Tasha liked to play charades at her Twelfth Night celebration.  As I expected there was murmuring amongst the men.  I had assigned my husband the job of clearing the table and putting the food away and it was duly noted that he was "getting out of" having to participate in the charades.  But by the time he joined us the raucous laughter coming from the living room was proof that everyone was having a joyous time!  I made it easy for everyone by providing a list of Tasha's books which can be found on the family's website here.  Everyone not only had 100 book titles to choose from, the audience had the list to choose the answer from.  On the second go round, though, we made a rule that you could no longer consult the list for the answer in order to make it a little more difficult.  This photo captures the hilarity that ensued. . . .

 Even Gabriel, my Westie, got into the act. . . .

After several rounds we went around the circle answering some of the questions on the Ice Breakers list.   The ones I remember the most were the weirdest foods.  I'm calling them by their names so the weak of stomach don't have to know what they are.  If you really want to know, click on the names:  balut, haggis, fish maw, ---on a stick.  The funniest one was the one where he thought he was eating a pretzel, but it turned out to be a stinkbug!  We were all sufficiently grossed out and moved on to places we'd like to visit:  Iceland, Alaska, Great Britain, Italy, France, Japan (I'm sure I've forgotten some).  Hobbies were gardening, sailing, writing, cooking, and geo-caching.  Having changed the subject from weird food, we were ready to head back to the dining room for dessert.   Tea cups were set out. . . .

Coffee. . . .

Pineapple Upside-Down Cake served with whipped cream, which was Tasha's son's (Seth) favorite Christmas dessert. . . .

. . . .and Tasha's "never-fail" receipt for Chocolate cookies, as long as you used real butter, heavy cream, and cake flour as the recipe directs. . . .

Soon it was time for us to push away from the table.  A most enJOYable evening was had by all.

.•*¨`*•. ☆ .•*¨`*•

Take Joy!