My cup runneth over

Or my email. If you have emailed or commented and I have rudely ignored you please accept my heartfelt and abject apologies.  I blame work and the unworldly wind we have been having (like something out of a Ray Bradbury poem) on the sad state of affairs that is my inbox. 

I will devote myself this weekend to responding.  If you have asked to exchange links or have just sent me a kind word, I will get back to you, I promise. 

Easter was a lovely affair.  I love the eating holidays.  There I said it.  I love getting together with my loved ones and having no pressure except to try to top last year's menu.  Thankgiving, Easter, Halloween (were the food is decidedly lowbrow but still a feast) – no presents – no pressure.  Just food and dressing up.

I made Mari's stuffed Strawberries.  Quite a pretty presentation.  And deceptively easy to make.  Search on her blog for 'strawberries' and you'll find the recipe. 

Every year our Easter menu is the same.  Why monkey around with perfection.  Except somehow, along the way, I got stuck with providing the breakfast meats.  Me.  The vegetarian.  This year my fellow chefs took pity on me and assigned me the fruit portion of the menu.  That was easy enough.  Stuffed strawberries for the wow factor and sliced honey dew with blueberries because the color combination is so pretty.

Another fun aspect to the food holidays is that I can pull out my serving dishes and use them.  Of course it would probably help if I had decent photos of them but I was more focused on the food when I took these pictures.  The platter the melon and berries is on is quite lovely.  A big, green pressed glass platter that I bought at Anthropologie for $3.97.  The thing is HUGE.  And it was on the clearance table for some reason.   I'm hoping it's not because of the lead content or anything like that.

The plate the strawberries is on is especially dear – my sons gave it to me on my birthday this year.  They went to a local antique store and found this lovely pink pressed glass cake plate.  This was my first time using it.   I'm sure it will be around for many more of the food holidays.