Hi, everyone!
We had record-breaking warm weather for a few days at the end of February! Grandma and I took advantage of one warm day to finish pruning the apple trees! I helped Grandma do the pruning and pick up the branches afterwards.
Then we walked around the yard, looking for signs of spring. The daffodils on the south side of the house were coming up, and our first crocus was in bloom! I guess it doesn’t matter that first crocus always comes up in the wrong place, as long as it is way earlier than the grass starts growing!
By the end of that week, winter came back! We had heavy, wet snow overnight into Friday! It was pretty to look at, but it broke a big branch off our neighbor’s pine tree! After the snow plow pushed most of the branch back out of the street, Grandma and I used a pruning saw to take off the parts that were still sticking out. Grandma was glad we had already finished pruning the apple trees!
Grandma said a snowy day was just the right time to get more food ready for the travel dinner! She roasted the purple sweet potatoes and made pasta dough. Then I helped her make purple sweet potato ravioli, like we had in Hawaii. I helped Grandma roll out the pieces of pasta dough until they were very thin, then I helped put spoonfuls of filling on half of the pasta. After Grandma flipped the other side of the dough over the filling and sealed it around each batch of filling, I helped her cut the raviolis apart! Then we spread them out on cookie sheets and put them in the freezer.
After that we made fudge sauce for the Hula Pie Grandma is planning to serve at the party. I wasn’t sure how it was going to end up when I started mixing it, but it looked yummy when I was done! That went into the refrigerator in a plastic container. Grandma labeled it, because it looks a lot like the barbecue sauce that’s already waiting for the party!
Meanwhile, Grandpa was starting to print the photos that tell the story of last year to put up on the kitchen door. I helped him, too! We printed the photos on our computer printer, then Grandpa and I trimmed the white edges off. After that, I helped Grandpa figure out how to arrange them on the door and put captions on them.
A few days later, Grandma made a focaccia for the party and put that in the freezer, too. Last Friday, the day before the party, Grandma and I were really busy making party food! We put a coconut cream filling in the vanilla cookie crust tart, then Grandma roasted the beets and yams for the salad. Grandma got the skins off the roasted beets by squishing them in her hands! I wanted to help, but Grandma said I would have pink paws forever if I did! She did let me help make the tiramisu dessert, like we had in Italy, and the lemongrass cream sauce for the purple sweet potato ravioli.
On Saturday morning, Grandma got me up early for more cooking. She made a lilikoi filling for the coconut tart, then I put toasted coconut on top for decoration. Moose-san and Tilly came to the party early with Joe-san and Nancy-san to help with the final cooking and serving. I showed them where Grandma was keeping some of the party food in the trunk of her car to stay cold. Grandma says winter weather for the travel dinner party gives her an extra refrigerator to use!
Everybody showed up for the travel dinner right on time! It was fun to see all my friends! Grandma and Joe-san were still cooking the main courses while our guests ate the appetizers. Everybody liked the purple sweet potato ravioli I helped make! Then Grandma cleared the appetizers and set out the main course. There was a lot of yummy food on the table! Moose-san and I made sure everybody got enough to eat! When it was time for dessert, we helped Grandma get out the coconut lilikoi tart and the tiramisu. The Hula Pie has ice cream for the filling, so Grandma got that out last and put whipped cream and hot fudge sauce on each piece individually. I was happy everybody liked the desserts, especially the ones I helped make!
My buddy La Vache came to the party with her Grandma and Grandpa. After dessert was served, she and I and Moose-san and Tilly made the rounds of all the guests to say hello. We are always happy to see our special friends and travel buddies!
While Grandma and some of the guests were helping clean up at the end of the party, Grandpa narrated the slide show of our best photos from the last year in the family room. La Vache and I watched, too! Then guess what? La Vache stayed for a sleepover after everybody else went home! It was a short night! We didn’t go to bed until way after our bedtimes and daylight saving time started, so we lost another sleeping hour! There was sunshine in the morning, and the Christmas cactus blossoms opened just in time for La Vache to see before she went home.
The high temperatures this week are supposed to be just above freezing, so the snow is slowly melting. Grandma says our next big project will be to eat up or freeze all the leftover food from the party! Once the snow melts, I can start looking for more signs of spring!
Love,
Lion-san
Hello Lion-San, I was glad to see that you put on your scarf and hat to stay warm when you went out with Grandma to help cut the pine tree branches that came down in the storm. And at the Travel Dinner Party I saw you wearing a handsome Hawaiian outfit. You have a bigger wardrobe than I realized. How many people were at the Travel Dinner Party? Sure wish we lived close enough to be part of the annual celebration. Grandma really loves to cook and entertain much more than I do. Love from, Great Aunt Betsy
Hi, Great Aunt Betsy! There were 19 people at the Travel Dinner Party, plus La Vache, Moose-san, Tilly and me. That’s a smaller number than some other years because some of our friends were out of town.
That snow was too heavy! Nancy-san said she saw daffodils, tulips and hyacinths outside in our yard! We all liked the food of the travel dinner. The sweet potato ravioli were really good as was the fudge sauce on the hula pie and the tiramisu. Actually all 3 desserts were really good as well as the whole dinner!