Bride-To-Be In Wonderland: Very Merry Unbridal Shower and Tea Party

My friend recently got married, and as one of her bridesmaids, I had the pleasure of helping to organize her bridal shower. The maid of honor, the other bridesmaids, and I primarily derived inspiration for the bridal shower from a blog post on an Alice In Wonderland themed shower (by a food blogger who went to school with my husband) and the Queen of Tea Parties, Wandering Chopsticks.


During our hunt for decorations, the maid of honor found an incredible set of matching invitations and "Eat Me" and "Drink Me" party labels on Etsy and a pack of Alice In Wonderland playing cards, and we went to town on using these items to make the tablescape come alive. We downloaded images from Lewis Carroll's books and slid them into apothecary jars filled with candy, and peppered the table with candies and paper daisies. Check out the tea sandwich recipes and more party pictures below!


Cucumber Tea Sandwiches
2 8oz pkgs of cream cheese, softened
1 bundle of fresh dill
2 tsp salt (or salt to taste)
1 large English cucumber, thinly sliced (with peel and seeds intact)
1 loaf of white bread, sliced and with crusts removed

Using the sharp blade of a knife, scratch off/separate the soft dill fronds from the woody stems, and finely mince the fronds. Whip the dill and salt into the cream cheese, and combine thoroughly. Taste and adjust salt accordingly. Spread each slice of white bread with a thin coat of the cream cheese spread and a layer the bread with the cucumber slices. Assemble the sandwiches, making sure that both the upper and lower slices of bread have a thin coat of the spread. Slice the sandwiches into quarters, diagonally. Cover with plastic wrap or wax paper until time to serve, to keep the bread soft.


Egg Salad Tea Sandwiches
1 dozen of boiled eggs, peeled and chopped
1 cup of mayonnaise
1/2 cup of spicy mustard
1/4 cup of sweet pickle relish
1 tsp of black pepper
1 loaf of white bread, sliced and with crusts removed

Combine the eggs, mayonnaise, mustard, relish, and pepper, and mix thoroughly. Generously spread each slice of white bread with a heaping layer the egg salad mixture and assemble the sandwiches by topping the sandwich with another slice of white bread. Slice the sandwiches into quarters, diagonally. Cover with plastic wrap or wax paper until time to serve, to keep the bread soft.


At tea parties, it is important to provide guests with a varied selection of teas. If you keep your pantry stocked with classic teas (such as black tea, green tea, chai tea, and other spiced teas) you should be in good shape. If you are looking to purchase some additional teas and are adventurous, try some great loose-leaf Asian teas (such as jasmine, tung ting, pouchong, and ti kuan yin), and robustly flavored teas such as rooibos and roses, cream Earl Grey, and ginseng. If these tea options sound too overwhelming, do not worry, just do what we did and pick up a variety pack of Bigelow (Celestial Seasonings, or Twinings) teas and you should be good to go for your tea party. (I used to totally shun Bigelow teas, but since we have them at work, I have taken quite a "liking" to some of their flavors.)


Also, another great party time-saver is preparing a crudite platter. I used to prepare all of the vegetables on my own (by washing, peeling, and cutting up carrot and celery sticks), but my husband taught me the error of my ways by showing me how easy it is to open a bag of baby carrots and grape tomatoes and pouring them onto a platter. Take it from me, it is well worth the time and money to take this shortcut.


And there you have it! I hope the pictures gave you some ideas for a tea party or shower you will be holding in the near future!

Now Mrs. Passionate Eater

Finally, the wedding is OVER and I can go back to passionate eating!

The bad thing is, I couldn't take pictures of the food and hardly ate at all because I was busy visiting the guests and going over other wedding details. So instead, I just wanted to show you all these pictures of the tasting menu, of what we ended up ordering for our buffet dinner. We had a sushi buffet station (as seen above), a French station, and an Asian fusion station.

At the French station, we ordered a salad made with wine country organic mixed greens with Napa Valley goat cheese, slices of Asian pear, toasted pecans, and Chardonnay verjus dressing.

For the appetizers, we enjoyed (1) ahi tuna fire spiced on crispy lotus root topped with wasabi aioli, (2) succulent Washington oysters served on the half shell with Chardonnay verjus dressing, and (3) mini dungeness crab cakes with a Spanish romesco sauce. We also ordered other items, not listed here in the tasting menu.

We also ordered grilled Colorado filet of beef tenderloin marinated with herbs de provence with a Cabernet roasted garlic sauce with a gratin of horseradish potatoes and a bundle of seasonal vegetables.

For the Asian fusion themed buffet station, we ordered teriyaki glazed salmon cooled on cedar planks and garnished with grilled pineapple and crispy fried spring onions and served with a mushroom mango risotto and saute of vegetables.

And I DO have pictures of the cake:

Now back to posting regularly! I missed everyone a lot, and am happy to announce that the stress is over!

Almost all images (with the exception of the "tasting menu" shots) are credit of their respective photographers (friends and professionals) and not Passionate Eater

Indecision 2008

There is more certainty in my mind about who to vote for this upcoming presidential election, than there is about trivial wedding details.

Planning a wedding has proven to be a very challenging endeavor. I usually try to make a decision and move on from it, but with the wedding, I find myself revisiting every decision that I made, and thinking, "Should I have done something else?"

One thing that I am beating myself up about, is the menu. The beau and I recently agreed on what to serve our guests during the cocktail hour and during the reception dinner, but I am starting to have doubts for the following two reasons:

Reason #1: I could only list eight items on the tasting menu, but I really wanted to try thirty-five.

Reason #2: The beau said he didn't think that (1) the jumbo prawns with meyer lemon cocktail sauce or (2) the raw oysters on a half-shell with chardonnay sabayon "would be a good fit at our wedding." . . . But it was a good fit in my stomach.

Wedding planning for an obsessive-compulsive foodie is self-destructive.

Just a Picture to Get Me Through the Day

We all need inspiration. Lately, I've been needing it quite often. Though raspberries aren't in season now, this picture serves as a nice reminder of what awaits for me in the late summer.

A wedding and the early start of the berry season.

Sweet Tooth, or Lack Thereof

Both the beau and I agreed that at our wedding, food will be of paramount importance. Western and Asian elements are crucial. Execution, presentation, texture, and flavor are imperatives. However, getting down to the details, there are actually some food things that I don't really have a strong opinion on one way or the other. One being, the wedding cake.

I never had much of a sweet tooth, and have always preferred the savory over the cloying. In fact, the last memorable sweet thing I consumed were strawberry cupcakes and a white chocolate individually-sized cake (as seen in images here), both for my summer birthday in 2007. (Yes, it is now 2008, and the strawberry cupcakes were light, airy, and gorgeous.) Therefore, my opinion on this topic needs some edumacation.

Conversations with the beau about the wedding cake usually proceed as follows:

Beau: Should we have tiers of cupcakes, or a cake?
Me: Either is fine.
Beau: What about a dessert buffet instead?
Me: I am not adverse to that.
Beau: Should we do a plain white cake, a Chinese sponge cake filled with fruit cocktail, or tiramisu? What about a red velvet cake like how Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson had? (For recent blog posts on red velvet cupcakes, check out these cake posts.)
Me: I am at peace with the conventional. I am also at peace with the non-conventional.
Beau: Should the cake be traditionally decorated with frosting, with flowers, or shaped and decorated as a cartoon character . . . Or a Jedi Knight, Klingon, or World of Warcraft character?
Me: All are okay.

(I know you cringed when you read that I was okay with the beau's suggestion of a "sci-fi" cake, but I honestly feel that ambivalent about wedding cakes that I would let the beau call the shots.)

While I disagree with those who think that a wedding cake is unnecessary at a wedding, I have even entertained the idea of having a fake styrofoam decoration cake and serving guests slices of sheet cake wheeled into the dining area after being surreptitiously plated in the back.

Do you have strong ideas or opinions on the subject of wedding cakes?

Wedding Weight Woes

As I said before, I will never be a bridezilla, and I never wanted a big wedding. For me, the dream wedding that I always envisioned entailed either (1) the signing of a marriage certificate at city hall or (2) the hitting up of a jingling slot machine after stopping at the Elvis Chapel o' Love in Las Vegas. But now that I am compromising with the beau and am agreeing to have a wedding at all, I am really starting to get into it. One thing that I previously vowed never to do, is try to lose weight for the big day. Unfortunately, that was the first "vow to myself" that went out the window.

Recently at work, my co-workers held a "Biggest Loser" competition, where the participants put in $60 each. At the end of the eight-week competition, the person that lost the most weight would get an award of (I think) $800. Although I didn't participate, it was motivating to learn this week that the winner ultimately lost 33 pounds. It was then that I realized I should probably try to skinny up a little, and lose some weight before my big day.

However, a "diet" (ugh, I hate that word) would really put a kink in my passionate eating lifestyle. Especially because I am infatuated with Mother's and Domilise's, and I can't get over po' boys filled with crunchy and deep-fried nuggets of seafood and crawfish cooked in butter and spices. (Oh, and later, I really want to share with you about Dot Domilise, the most-adorable lady ever and the owner of Domilise's, and her story about Hurricane Katrina.)

Yesterday, I went to Mother's for lunch, and with my "diet" in mind, I accomplished my first, mind-blowing, lifestyle-altering step towards losing weight. I ordered a dressed oyster po' boy, but without extra mayonnaise. Without extra mayonnaise!! I am on my way to losing weight!

Baby steps, folks. Baby steps.