Tag: Entertaining

Christmas

Sparkle and Shine

Sarah James-Wallace

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Christmas is a wonderful sparkly, shiny time of the year when we celebrate all that is good with the world. Our annual bookclub Christmas dinner is one of the highlights of the social calendar. On the eve of hosting this year’s dinner, I’m sharing these photos from a past event.

The theme for this dinner was silver and white. It was fun to wrap a present for each place setting (a Christmas mug), using the traditional Japanese technique of wrapping in cloth (furoshiki). This is a great way to wrap using materials that can easily be recycled.

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As we celebrate Christmas in all its shiny and sparkling goodness, I’m reminded of the greatest gift giver.

“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” James 1:17

Next week I’ll share all the details of this year’s event!

Christmas

Tidings of Comfort and Joy

Sarah James-Wallace

B9D88B61-8F06-46CF-B398-4F460BB2E25FWhat better way to celebrate the festive season than with a hot chocolate party? It really evokes the feeling of “hygge”, which is a Scandinavian word describing a mood of coziness contributing to wellness and contentment. I may live in the wrong hemisphere for getting cosy at Christmas, but supping on hot chocolate certainly creates comfort and joy!

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It has become an annual tradition for us to host a hot chocolate party (the photos above are from last year). It’s a really easy way to entertain and the kids enjoy adding lots of decadent toppings (such as caramel sauce, whipped cream, marshmallows, Lindt balls, choc chips and candy canes) to make their own special brew. To keep the evening easy and relaxed I use festive paper plates and paper hot beverage cups to which I add Christmas stickers. The hot chocolate recipe and my initial inspiration for the party comes from littlespicejar.com. For the party this year I reused the swan tablesetting from my previous post.

Sometimes we do a simple craft activity (last year we painted Christmas images onto rocks, which we later hid for others to find). This evening has become one of our kid’s favourite Christmas traditions, so I think we will be hosting it for some time to come. Merry Christmas everyone and I look forward to catching up again after holidays in the New Year!

Kid’s Parties

For the love of a good party

Sarah James-Wallace

89114F56-6174-41A3-8142-802EBA255A24I remember this party so well! I’m on the far left and Mum is cutting the cake. I love the look of joy and anticipation on my face (and on some of my friends’ faces). I have photos of my kids, capturing this same look at birthday cake cutting time – it’s a special moment.  This party had a circus theme and was complete with sideshow alley stalls and a toffee apple and popcorn seller. I remember thinking the circus carousel cake was absolutely magical. My Mum is one of the best party planners I know and has been my greatest inspiration for hosting events.

D3C18FBC-EC5B-45A1-8250-FC855C26D1B0Mum wrote up all her parties in her scrapbooks and I loved reading them as a child, just as I still do now. The party written about above was another birthday for me with a Wind in the Willows theme. I was given (and still have) a Wind in the Willows cookbook and a lot of the party food came from there.

F7F88730-6AF2-4421-820E-E4FB665C1581Another book which really sparked my imagination growing up, and set me on a path of joyful party planning was Mum’s copy of The Australian Hostess Cookbook. I was fascinated by the descriptions of actual events the contributors to the book had hosted all over Australia – some on far flung stations in the outback and some in city locations. The descriptions of how these parties were hosted, what the host and guests wore and the menus, is today a really interesting historical reflection of this era.

When I went to boarding school at age twelve my growing collection of cookbooks came with me. I remember reading them as bedtime stories, planning dishes to make on my next trip back to the farm for holidays. Do you have events, books or special people who have inspired you?

 

Entertaining

Five ways to make an everyday meal special

Sarah James-Wallace

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Yesterday  was that special day that many of us love to hate, although I suspect deep down there lingers in most of us at least a little appreciation for it, as who could not like a day that celebrates LOVE! I do like to celebrate Valentine’s Day (and am glad that my husband does too) and I usually include my kids in the celebration in some kind of low key way.

Here are five tips for making an everyday meal special (such as breakfast on Valentine’s Day – pictured above) :

  • Find a tablecloth, or a length of fabric, a sheet or a sari, anything really will do to dress your table (the lace tablecloth above was handed down from my grandmother and always reminds me of all the wonderful meals she cooked). Also use some table napkins. I usually keep a few packets in my cupboard for special occasions , although you can also use vintage handkerchiefs or cloth ones. They always look very festive fanned out in glasses on the table;
  • Light a candle – this really adds to the atmosphere and kids especially get a kick out of dining by candlelight. Put on some music. It’s easy to find themed music or a playlist to set the scene for your meal.
  • Find some props to put on the table. Flowers or arrangements of foliage from your garden are always lovely, but you could also add shells, driftwood, ornaments or a tiny present at each place setting (like the tiny heart soaps and chocolates used here);
  • Use your special glasses, crockery and cutlery – don’t let them sit in the cupboard gathering dust.
  • Buy some treat food, that you don’t have every day. This breakfast was special (and easy) as we had croissants and juice.

Dawn love is silver, Wait for the west: Old love is gold love – Old love is best.

Katharine Lee Bates 1859-1929

 

 

Entertaining

Dîner en Blanc

Sarah James-Wallace

During the school holidays we were shopping in Pavement when some white dresses on the sale rack caught my husband, Murray’s eye. Harriet and Portia were excited to try them on and they looked stunning! Murray decided to buy them, but the next question was where to wear them? We didn’t have any special occasions coming up, so we decided to create one!

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The girls (with their cute cousin, Jude), wearing their new dresses which inspired the dinner

A few years ago I had been excited to read about the concept of Dîner en Blanc, which began in Paris in 1988. Francois Pasquier started the idea when he invited a group of friends to an outdoor dinner, asking them to all wear white, so they could easily recognise each other. The phenomenon has now spread to over seventy cities (including Perth) with more than 100,000 annual guests. The tradition involves guests dressing in head-to-toe white and bringing their own gourmet meals, tables, white chairs, table linen and tableware to a location kept secret until the last minute.

I would love to attend an official Dîner en Blanc one day, but logistics mean that this will most likely be sometime in the future. In the meantime we decided to put together our own version with a few more relaxed rules! We had the dinner in our outdoor lounge area complete with festoon lights bought especially for the occasion. The lights certainly added to the festive atmosphere and there may have been a few shenanigans at the table, such as phantom comic reading by the kids and tree house climbing in the boring bits!

The meal started with a prosciutto and papaya salad (papaya and prosciutto drizzled with olive oil, red wine vinegar, orange juice and topped with basil leaves) and then moved onto spring lamb with peas, feta and pine nuts, accompanied by haaselback roast potatoes. For dessert we had blackberry jelly with honey ice cream.  This was a huge hit!

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For drinks, I served a pomegranate grapefruit paloma from one of my favourite cooking sites, Smitten Kitchen. The kids had the same drink, except of course without the tequila!

This event was easy to plan and because I kept the menu simple, easy to prepare. Hopefully you feel inspired to plan your own Dîner en Blanc one day!

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Even the very naughty and cheeky puppy Popcorn got to attend the dinner briefly!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Christmas

It’s the most wonderful time of the year . . .

Sarah James-Wallace

951FFE54-D77E-42BD-B2AB-E35EBCC97501It really is my favourite time of the year and not least because of that little baby born so long ago who brought good news that brings great joy for all of us.

I am one of those people who LOVE Christmas and really enjoy all of it’s preparations. The photo above comes from a recent Christmas dinner I hosted for my bookclub. I wanted to incorporate the book theme and made some little houses for each place setting by folding old book pages and then gluing some feathers or a paper flag on top. The link for the tutorial I used and adapted is here.

I used some eucalyptus branches as a table runner. I had to embark on a nature hunt to find these (complete with eye rolling from children), as this particular variety of eucalypt with soft grey green leaves and white branches is not common in Geraldton. On top of the eucalypt I added some pink and metallic baubles as well as some silver tea light holders.  Inspiration for the large candle holders came from here, although I did need to shave my copper candles quite a lot to fit inside the bottles, which necessitated gluing on some moss around the top.

The napkins are vintage and were sourced at a recent antique fair in Geraldton. The tablecloth was purchased online from Hale Mercantile Co.

Our bookclub Christmas dinner always involves a hilarious, present stealing game of kris kringle. To carry the book theme through to my gift, I created a cacti book planter using this tutorial as inspiration.

 

I would like to keep sharing details of other Christmas parties and festivities, but I will need to save that for another time, as I must away to attend to my packing for the trip south to spend time with family.  A very Merry Christmas to all and I look forward to sharing more posts with you in February 2018.

The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light. Isaiah 9:2