Going Away Party

In August I decided to hold a going away party for myself, and I cooked up a storm.

I'm always worried that there won't be enough food, and for me, it's the worse thing for someone to leave hungry.

Just looking at all of this food makes me wish I had some of those as leftovers in my fridge right now. Because I have not had much time to cook in the last few days.

My mother's style of Vietnamese spring rolls. They are actually nothing like traditional spring rolls.

I put in fried egg crepe, shrimp, cucumber, bean sprouts (which I painstakingly pulled the ends off of), basil, mint, and vermicelli that I flavored with msg, sugar, salt, and dried Chinese pork.

Roasted fresh corn with feta, roasted tomatoes and cilantro in a simple vinaigrette.

Potato salad with these awesome dill pickles that are so easy to make.

Peach cobbler, this one is mind-numbingly simple. I made it with these white peaches that were a tad juicy. I must say though, I don't understand the addition of warm water to cold butter. I'm with the recipe on the cold butter, just not on the warm water.

Moroccan carrot salad, thank you Mark Bittman. See number 14.

Cool cucumber soup shots. I also had watermelon gazpacho shots.

Caprese skewers. Thank goodness for friends. I called in reinforcements. Both the Bastard Consultant, and someone who I will hereby deem the Dr. Consultant came in to help. They skewered, they peeled, they helped. A lot.

I may have gone a bit overboard on the cream, but I get a little exuberant when making Cajun Shrimp Curry.

All-in-all it was a lot of fun to see people from all the different parts of my life. Stuck out here in the Windy City, I miss all of them dearly.