Lunching With The Ladies

Believe it or not, my new keyboard has yet to arrive. Good grief, folks, I could have walked to New Delhi by this time. 

But here's an update on the Luncheon Club adventure that I mentioned last week and a few pictures to go with it.  In full disclosure, I didn't take these pictures the day of the luncheon. I reset the table the next day. 

That's why the flowers look a little wilted. 

I felt the oddball need to point that out.   

Picture them fresher, OK?

As I mentioned last week, we've been doing luncheon club for about two years now.  We get together every few months, usually during a school break. That's because our group includes two friends who are still teaching full time.  Last week was winter break around these parts, even though it felt much more like spring. 

I wanted my luncheon to feel like spring too.  

My china pattern is Shenendoah by Noritake.  I chose it because of those pink roses, and I've been dressing her in rosey pink for 28 years. 

She's pretty in pink... 

However, I have already done a pink themed table for luncheon club, and I wanted to do something different. Since my theme color this year is yellow, I decided to try her out on a backdrop of the butter yellow I found near the rim. 

See it?

It wasn't as easy I had assumed. Every single napkin I owned just looked blah with the ivory and butter yellow. I was just about to retreat back to pink comfort zone when I decided to go with quirky cotton casual for a pop of color. I made these reversible ones in green and pink the night before the luncheon.  

'Cause what I need around here is one more set of napkins...

I borrowed those silver napkin rings from the Farm Sister. Aside from that, the only thing I had to mooch was a set of sherbet glasses from the Duchess. 

The rest of the crystal is my own

 Moonspun by Lenox. 

Place cards were set in silver baskets 

that I found in the wedding section of Hobby Lobby.    

 I'm planning to reuse them for my Easter table,

but for now they are just spring baskets. 

As far as the actual luncheon is concerned, this is how we roll:  

Guests always arrive together. In fact, they carpool when it's my turn since I live 30 country miles from the rest of them. They are greeted with a table dressed however the hostess wants to dress it... 

...even if she's not planning to use every piece of creative dishery. 

When you're dealing with friends, you can do whatever you want. 

Then, guests retreat to the living room to turn on their chatterboxes while the hostess removes overkill and gets it ready for the first course.  

Ours was a spring salad with

 toasted pecans, craisons, feta, and mandarin oranges. 

I had a little orange theme going with the rest of the meal. We had marmalade chicken and chilled asparagus with THIS honey balsamic vinaigrette.

For the chicken, I basically use THIS  this recipe, but this time I improved it by adapting a recipe from Singing With Birds. I marinated the chicken all morning in 2 cups of Sprite Zero, 1/2 cup of soy sauce, and 2 cloves of garlic. 

I will forever more fix it this way.  Really... yum. Sorry, but we ate all the pictorial evidence. 

Since we're a bunch of weight watching 50 somethings, 

we  had a WW recipe for dessert called orange fluff. 

(HERE)

As of this writing, no one has reported ptomaine or nausea. 

They even requested recipes. 

We lingered as usual until late into the afternoon and have already planned our next luncheon club adventure for spring break in April.  

So anyway, that's all I have to say about that. I'm still waiting for my keyboard to arrive and make this blog life a little bit easier. If you don't see my flower cart around as much,  please know that it's not for lack of desire. 

Computer willing, I'll be sharing with the The Porch People. 

I'm kind of odd about not posting at a party if I can't mingle, though,

 and Winky is a poor mingler.