The Houston Junior League also hoped that those missing pages would not "cause too much trouble in your pursuit of culinary masterpieces." They did not, and in honor of my new copy of Stop and Smell the Rosemary, I made their chocolate chili Friday night. I love love loved it. Jeff needs more beans and less ground beef, he says, in his chili. I told him he can get his chili elsewhere. He also didn't think my cornbread was sweet enough.

Saturday Jeff's birthday dinner party, which went very well. The final menu was leek and potato soup with rolls, followed by sole amandine and sweet potato fries, and then baked goat cheese salad and then a French apple tart (which was BEAUTIFUL. I don't mind a little bragging. It was gorgeous.). I don't think I'm going to do a multi-course meal that involves so much last minute cooking- if the entree had been a roast, it would have been a lot easier. It also stretched our mishmash of Dollar Store and Crate and Barrel cheapo dishes to the extreme. Jeff had to go out and get more plastic plates from the Dollar Store for dessert- I was thinking disposable plates, since there is no need to bankrupt ourselves. He thought I meant actual plastic plates, so we now have an $8 set of yellow plastic plates with olives on them.

Also, the vegan totally ate the butter laden tart and two nights before came over and had lots of cookies. With EGGS. I will now let it go that someone will turn down goat cheese but eat eggs, but I wanted to say it one last time.

We had a little leftover sole since two of our guests RSVPed at, oh, 6 PM to say they couldn't be there, so last night I made oven baked fish and chips. We also have a ton of leftover Brie and fancy pecans, so I may just eat party snacks for the rest of the week.