formalities

Black Tie at the White House

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Last week, President and Mrs. Obama hosted a reception in honor of Ford’s Theatre, the historic theatre used for various stage performances beginning in the 1860s, and the site of the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.  I’m posting some photos from the White House reception, to illustrate the level of detail that goes into the planning of a really good party.  That extra bit of ivy tucked into the flower arrangements, the careful placement of the canapés on the silver […]

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recipes

Corn on the Cob

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Serves 6 Prep time: 30 minutes Corn picks are nice to have, but unless you’re eating in a more formal setting I prefer to do without them.  They tend to get thrown away by mistake, and hey, corn on the cob is a naturally messy food.  Part of the fun of eating it is having a devil-may-care attitude about the mess.

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summer

Out of the Heartland…

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…Come the simplest yet most satisfying of foods.  One of my absolute favorites is corn on the cob.  What could be more ordinary, right?  Wrong.  Like so many things in life, it’s all in the presentation.  When I was a kid, we had a corn patch on our farm and I would be sent out on a summer day to pick a couple dozen ears and bring them in for lunch.  That was all we would eat – a corn […]

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recipes

Fresh Garbanzo Beans

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Serves 4 Prep time: 15 minutes *Note: I’d never seen these at the grocery store until this summer, but they are available at both the Whole Foods and our local Safeway, so I don’t think they will be too difficult to find.

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formalities

The President requests the pleasure of your company…

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Many people I meet seem to have an unquenchable curiosity about life in the White House.   They ask what it was really like to be around the President and First Lady, what I wore, how I learned about Protocol, how the menus were created, what the best party was – though more often than not they want to hear about the worst party.  (Who doesn’t love a good party disaster story?)   So let’s dip into the full White House experience, […]

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