Dinner Parties

Friday was bonkers! I had a dentist appointment in the morning, a ton of client work and a Girl Scout troop meeting all before coming home to host six of Rob’s co-workers, all in town for a conference. This was a dinner party where preparing in advance was a requirement. Menu Persimmon and grapefruit margaritas…

Rob’s colleagues from around the world are coming to dinner Friday night at the house. We’ll be eight in total and I’ll be rushing back from our Girl Scout meeting just in time for it to start…so I need to actually plan this one in advance. The request came in for ceviche to be on…

Less than an hour from the bustling center of Silicon Valley is a lovely state park with tall redwood trees, ferns and – most shocking of all in this California drought – running streams. Portola Redwoods State Park was the site of this year’s camping weekend for my birthday. It was so nice of 10…

Two weekends, two lovely baby showers for Jackie with inspiration from East African culture. As mentioned in the last shower’s recap, Jackie is epidemic researcher with the CDC and has spent time living in Kenya, Malawi and Benin for her important work. For this baby shower in San Francisco, we had even more researchers and…

I love a good gala! Sadly I’ve been going to fewer ever since the San Francisco Symphony disappointingly cancelled the biannual Black & White Ball (maybe it will come back someday).  So Rob and I jumped at the chance to combine work and pleasure on our anniversary at the Parks Alliance Party for the Parks gala.…

Thanks to Rob’s role as a community advocate with SF Urban Riders – a group promoting off-road cycling in the city – our dining room is often the scene of committee meetings and work sessions these days. After we worked with friends to make bunting and trail bells for a booth at Tour de Fat, a few…

The next day after Opera in the Park, Rob and I had our neighbors and friends Mimi and Chris over for dinner. It was the last week of the really good tomatoes at farmer’s market and the perfect occasion for a simple, fresh menu. This was one of those dinner parties where I had very little…

Oh my! We have been so busy the last two weeks. A picnic with the San Francisco Opera was quickly followed by two dinner parties, a volunteer day, a fundraiser gala and a family vacation to Santa Cruz. Let’s start catching up! Every year, the San Francisco Opera puts on Opera in the Park as the…

Shane came up to visit for the weekend and to celebrate his and Jackie’s birthdays. What better way to enjoy California’s late summer with our favorite Catalan traveling companion than a Spanish style picnic in Sebastapol! Marimar Estate is the (literal) sister winery of Torres, the vineyards we explored outside of Barcelona in the spring. Menu:…

I’ve thrown dozens of bridal showers, a handful of weddings and even more baby showers but, by chance, had never hosted a bachelorette party until Margaret’s last weekend! I was nervous to put together something really fun, budget-friendly and very San Francisco for the group of fairly non-party-animal types in our mid 30’s. So Saturday night, we headed out…