December 13, 2011
Last week, I wasn’t planning on a mid-week hang over, but to quote our friend Mike Barna, “I couldn’t let go of the fun ring.”
I fake-hosted a mock holiday cocktail party (got that?) for a photo shoot at my house. At some point business turned to pleasure, with all the scattered wine corks to prove it. As we dipped into more dirty martinis with gusto (oh yes, there were martinis too), my new bestie Justine renamed my blog “eat-drunk-garden”—and yes, I did go and buy the domain name.
We started with staged appetizers in the living room (no one really likes taking big bites of lamb sliders with a camera clicking away in their face). After we wrapped, we all ended up around the kitchen island for my “let’s keep drinking mainstay”—carbonara. Justine took notes and you’ll have to get the recipe from her, because I’ve made it for her before under similarly boozy circumstances and it’s one of those “unrecipe recipes.” I just do according to my mood and fancy but I will tell you one thing: when you make carbonara with the traditional ingredients (pasta, eggs, bacon and Parmesan), you will also need lots of freshly ground pepper and a good amount of pasta water. Justine insisted on having the recipe in hand and stood by my side in the kitchen, diligently taking notes on hot pink paper with a smencil.
But before all this drunky fun transpired (including an image of me clutching my glass of fizzy Alka-Seltzer in one hand and coconut water in the other the next morning), I did put together some seasonally inspired floral arrangements for the photo shoot.
For this one, it started with spray painting a manzanita branch gold and accidentally spraying some gold on my camera and prescription glasses—these are the things that happen when you’re assembling stuff in your garage at 11:00 p.m.
Maybe the spray can fumes were getting to me because I even sprayed some of the bruised blooms gold just for giggles.
After the paint dried I shoved large cymbidium orchids on the manzanita branch. The arrangement was inspired by a magnolia tree blooming in the yard:
When mixing arrangements I love to borrow inspiration from nature. It’s such a constant source of creative motivation.
For candle light, I turned some of our wine glasses over and created pedestal candle holders. Even more reason to buy wine glasses in multiple sizes!
I wanted these arrangements to look like a snow-covered forest floor. Maybe I’ve seen Bambi with the girls too many times.
Well, at least the house is now decorated for Christmas …
