First dinner party and the first knit of the 2009 all within three days of the ball dropping! Woosh! Shall I tell the story in pictures? Okay.
This year was our second-annual Hanukkah Party and was even better than the first year.... probably because I didn't do the shopping, cooking, and cleaning in the day following finishing my first semester of law school finals. Instead, this year I shopped, cooked, and cleaned for 3 days and it was a much more enjoyable experience. Okay, first up: the house (or apartment, I guess).
After three days of cleaning, everything finally looked great.
We got these dishes and napkins at Crate and Barrel the day after Christmas basically for free. The after-Christmas sales kicked in before Hanukkah was over. So we lucked out big time. (:
Sorry for the gross quality of this and the next few photos. Being in a loft, only the bedroom and living room have windows - we have to rely on very soft natural light coming over the "soft" wall (doesn't go to the ceiling). As you can see, no soft light available at the time of this particular photo-op. Anyway, our office has been an eye sore since we moved in August 2007. We didn't know what to do with the wall space, since all of our "coherent" art was used up in the more general areas of the house.
So finally I went allll the way out to Ikea and got some cheap fabric and frames and made some fabric boxes. We also bought some metal dry erase boards - very industrial meets... uh... me (: Our desk is actually our old dining room table. We didn't want to spend a lot of money on a desk and after buying a new dining room table, we thought this one would do the trick. Reduce, reuse, right? Moving on.
Thanks to track lighting (blegh), this picture is a little more passable. We bought the three big posters (not Gaudi or Job) in a pack of 8 for $20 at Renegade in September. They have been sitting on our floor since then. Good, right? Again, Ikea saved the day and we purchased these glass sandwich frames for $6 a piece. I love deals. The guitar is mine - a Valentines Day gift from my Great Aunt Evelyn when I was still in High School. (:
Pretend this isn't blurry, please. This is my little craft corner. The table is actually a sewing stand: the top lifts up to show an amazing amount of thread and little compartments for all of my needles, scissors, etc. The other two drawers are filled with ribbon and patterns. Another keepsake from Evelyn. Above the table are all of my knitting/sewing books. I'm proud.
More posters. No big. The stools got taken out of the kitchen to make more room and are not generally in such a ridiculous place.
ON TO THE FOOD!
Okay, so I didn't take a lot of pictures of food. Mainly because everything I made tasted great but looked... not so good. (: Fried Latkes and Brisket do not photograph well. But here is my menu:
My Gramma's Latkes (in her own writing)
Our friends always pick up the slack by each couple bringing an appetizer, side, or desert. This year the Aprils brought homemade spinach artichoke dip, Greenfields brought salads from Wildfire (my fave), and Engels brought a Trifle.
If you are interested in making my Gramma's potato pancakes, you should know that they are a little different than what you are used to. The condensed milk makes them a little sweet. They are INCREDIBLE with either Sour Cream or Applesauce. The recipe I included for applesauce is SO good. My friends call it my homemade applesauce recipe. Pff. Thanks, but I couldn't take credit for this. I use brown sugar instead of white. People rave. You should make it.
ON TO KNITTING!
If you aren't familiar with what a "Secret Latke" is, it's the same as a "Secret Santa" but for the Jews. Secret Santa in potato pancake form. (; So my Secret Latke got a hand knit hat and I tried out labels for the first time!
Pattern: Sideways Grande Cloche
Source: Boutique Knits by Laura Irwin
Yarn: Brown Sheep Burly Spun yarn
Yardage: Almost the entire skein
A good start to my 2009 knitting, I think. Hope you are all having a great year so far!
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