The Pauls hosted and the theme of the evening was luck. And frankly, we're lucky to have any photos at all. I was a bit lackadaisical about capturing our feast.
We had some lovely homemade bread with a dipping sauce made with olive oil from Rosie's adopted olive tree. No pictures, but the bread was delicious.
José prepared an unnamed appetizer. I'm sure I'll get some of this wrong, but it included layers of avocado, creamy cucumber, smoked salmon, and shrimp. (If I missed anything significant, feel free to add the info in the comments!) The shrimp is apparently lucky because it is in the shape of an elderly person bent over by age. Which signifies longevity. It was really nicely chilled. Not sure whether it would have had quite the same impact at room temperature. A very decadent dish.
The Reimagnolis prepared a lentil stew. Supposedly, the lentils look like lire? (I don't see it) So lentil stew signifies prosperity.
The Pauls prepared a lovely black-eyed pea pie. Not sure if this is the actual recipe Nancy used, but it sounds a lot like it. Layers of greens, black-eyed peas, chorizo, and mushrooms. In a fabulous homemade crust. Turns out it was a ton of work, but the work paid off. Delicious.
The Mableys prepared a fabulous shrimp pad thai. There was some debate about the length of the noodles. They're supposed to be long to signify longevity, and there were some accusations of noodles being cut. But we believe those accusations to be unfounded.
And we closed out the evening with a chocolate bundt cake. The dutch dark cocoa is the key to the lovely dark color of this cake.
Our next meeting will be our annual ski trip! Let's hope we get at least a little snow before then.
