1. Today Diane sent out a task schedule for this Friday and Saturday to the reunion committee members. It sure looks to me like if we do what Diane has laid out for us that the open house on Friday, the visit to the high school Saturday morning, the get together (another open house) up the river afterward on Saturday, and our dinner and dance late in the afternoon and on into the evening on Saturday should go really well.
2. Debbie and I hosted family dinner tonight and Debbie took charge of the planning and the cooking. She fixed a superb mess of calico beans and a perfectly built Amish pasta shells (or macaroni) salad. Debbie had found a recipe for a pitcher drink that combined bourbon, ginger beer, and raspberries. I mixed it up.
3. Carol fixed dill pickles and spicy asparagus spears and cream cheese wrapped in thin slices of lunchmeat as an appetizer and Christy baked a peach pound cake served with vanilla ice cream and Crown Royal peach whiskey for dessert.
As a youngster, I must not have been paying close attention to potluck offerings at the United Church. Talk around the table at dinner tonight led me to believe that calico beans were a popular item at these church spreads, but, as I ate Debbie's bean dish today, it felt like the first time (the very first time) I had eaten them. I loved the way the dish's saltiness and sweetness played off of each other along with the slight acidity of the tomatoes that Debbie added to the beans. I also enjoyed the variety of beans in this dish, their textures and how they tasted. Likewise, the pasta salad was packed with different flavors and took me back to the occasional childhood outings we went on to Pottsville where some kind of macaroni salad always seemed to be served.
We had a lot to talk about before, during, and after dinner, especially given that Paul and Carol hosted their first day of Grow Your Creativity Camp for middle school-ish aged kids across the street at the church. They reported on how the first day went (pretty well, I gathered). We also talked about dogs, Title I school programs, and other things and made wise cracks about stuff. In short, we had a successful and spirited family dinner together.
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