My parents just celebrated their 50th anniversary. My family was in town and we ended up throwing my parents a surprise party. The surprise was almost blown a few times, but my mom was surprised all the way up to the point where she opened my front door! Prep work for this party was a beast as I was doing most of it on my own. I wasn’t going to cook, with little kids, I knew my limits. I had my good friend Kim make the cake, I ordered most of the food from Brother’s Marketplace in Weston, picked up beer and prosecco at Trader Joe’s, and got the charcuterie from Moody’s in Waltham. We had the party in the later afternoon, so were weren’t planning on serving a meal, but we had so much food that people ate, and ate, and ate. No real theme for the party, my mom loves Liberty prints, so I made it a point to get paper goods with all different Liberty patterns. I bought them off of Amazon, and they are Meri Meri.

Brother’s Marketplace was amazing. Basically one stop shopping. Everything was super easy. I got steak tips for 20, picked them up cold and warmed them up in the over before the party. Served them in a warming tray and kept them heated with a Sterno. Sides were a corn and bean salad (for 10), a fruit salad (for 10), Caesar salad (for 10) and an amazing crudité platter (for 10). They were very conscious of someone who had a nut/sesame allergy, double checking that the marinade for the steak tips didn’t have sesame in it. Let me just tell you how many people RAVED about the steak tips. They are our favorite, and people just couldn’t believe that a market made them!

The cake was my first stop at 9am. I picked it up in Weymouth and dropped it off at home (this summer was not ideal cake weather). I didn’t want it to start to sweat or melt. Second stop was Moody’s in Waltham. I picked up the charcuterie platter for 20. They put out an awesome product. Again, great with the nut/sesame allergy here, they gave us poppyseed crackers instead of sesame. I was able to choose what I wanted on the plate, I had taken my brother to Moody’s a while back and he LOVED the Parmesan salami (although he doesn’t remember that he did) so that was a MUST on the plate. I also picked hard cow cheeses because if there was going to be left overs, I wanted it to be something I would want to eat. The honey, mustard and picked veggies were a really nice compliment on the plate. Moody’s charges per person for the charcuterie platters.,

I did make a few things for the party. A pasta salad with a recipe I stole from my sister in law. Peach and burrata salads are SO in this summer. I decided to make a simple peach, mozzarella, prosciutto salad and topped it with a drizzle of balsamic. Another option (if we didn’t have a nut allergy) would have been pesto over top. This salad went in the blink of an eye, and people were raving about it. I made a shrimp dish that also flew off the plate – super simple to make ahead of time and people just think it’s fancy. I doubled the recipe and used 2 1/2 pounds of shrimp for the 45 people that were at the party.

How AMAZING are these flowers?!? Again, people couldn’t believe that these came from a market. I picked these up at Brother’s, the talented Ali Papa put these together. I told her that I wanted all white and ‘elegant’ and she whipped this up. My mother loved them! We ordered two arrangements to balance out the long dining room table, allowing the cake to sit at the center.

The cake turned out AMAZING! I was originally going to do a flat cake of the record. My dad proposed to my mom on a record cover, that used to be hanging up at their house. But when I went looking for it, my mom had replaced it with another picture, so on to plan b. We used to have this old olive green, wood panel station wagon that we would go on road trips in. I was looking through my friend Kim’s instagram and she had just done this amazing VW Beetle cake. So thus the decision for a station wagon cake! The top brown and yellow things are suitcases, and on the other side they have all our names on them – like a family tree.

All in all, quite the afternoon. My parents were excited to see all of their friends, and my dad didn’t run away once he realized what was going on, so I would call that a success.

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Spring is finally here!! I have already committed to storing away my winter clothes, so no doubt it will snow in May! So it means dining on patios, open toed shoes, maxi dresses and my favorite, picnics! Not a fan of the outdoors? You could easily do this on a porch (skip the bugs) or throw a blanket down on the floor and transform your living room into the perfect little picnic spot for date night in. Leah and I teamed up with Willow Tree Farm to create some fun ideas to add to your basket, using their delicious chicken salad that comes in flavors like: buffalo chicken salad, premium white meat chicken salad, cranberry walnut chicken salad, sriracha chicken salad and avocado chicken salad.

So if you are going completely gluten free, this recipe is for you. I love lettuce wraps, yes, even the ones at PF Changs. Leah and I thought that we would do a fun take on lettuce wraps (not just a scoop of chicken salad in a lettuce cup) and added in Fox Point Pickling Company’s dill carrots for that extra little zing and that big crunch. Just grab a small head of iceberg lettuce and start peeling off those layers – added bonus, there’s little cleanup to do here!

What’s all over Pinterest? Ball jar meals. So Leah and I took the buffalo chicken salad (that has a nice little kick to it) and added in some layers of black beans, chopped onions, shredded lettuce, cherry tomatoes, and micro greens. Eat straight from the jar or bring along a bowl to pour it into. Tie up a small baguette in wax paper to complete this meal. We made our own lemonade for the daytime version of this meal:

1 3/4 cup of white sugar

8 cups of water

1 1/2 cups of lemon juice

Directions:

Combine 1 cup of water with the white sugar in a saucepan. Bring up to a boil and stir to dissolve the sugar. Remove from heat and allow to cool to room temperature. Plate in refrigerator until chilled.

Squeeze lemons to make 1 1/2 cups of juice. In a large container, mix together lemon juice, chilled simple syrup and 7 cups of water.

For the evening version of this meal (or even the afternoon ) pair with a single serve rosé (bonus if you can find one with a straw!).

Everyone loves Mexican, why not try this: corn salsa from Trader Joe’s, black beans, jack cheese, buffalo chicken salad and an olive tapenade to top it off. Serve with a side of your favorite corn chips. So easy to travel with you could even bring it to work for lunch with you during the week!

How much avocado toast can you have? Why not try the new avocado chicken salad from Willow Tree, it is made with avocado mayonnaise and is sweetened up with cranberries. The salad itself is gluten free, even though we served it up on this crusty baguette. We simply paired this chicken salad with some micro greens and pickled carrots. We garnished with some pickles we picked up on the North Fork from Sep’s Farm and a cute fruit salad.

What’s your go to meal for a picnic? And share with me some of your favorite spots!

Disclaimer: I was provided samples of Willow Tree chicken salad for this post. All opinions are my own.

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