Jenny La Fleur

I'm happy to report the Victoriana Fete was a great success! I had a wonderful time, the food was fabulous and the company even better. Thanks to Dad volunteering to be our Chef for the day (Chef Blanc-de-Blanc) my simple little Fete morphed into a 6-course luncheon (with wines!). We are insane!

The food went off well, thanks to lots of pre-planning and excel spreadsheets with Dad. And of course the help of my kitchen slaves helpers gilded_garb & girliegirl32786. They helped me clear plates, pour the wine and serve. We make such a good team. It was a lot of work but it was a lot of fun. I don't expect to do anything like this for a good long while though! Whew!

The Menu:

Each course had it's corosponding beverage too:
hors d'œuvre - Blanc-de-Blanc Champagne
fish - Chardonnay or Pinot Grigio
entree - Shiraz (Penfold's Bin 128)
cheese - Ruby or Tawny Port
dessert - coffee, & more champagne & port

We also had an alternative entree for my vegetarian guests, Wild Mushroom Ragoût in puff pastry. I nibbled off of Aubry's plate and that was tasty too - yay! I'm getting more comfortable with working around everyone's food allergies and diet restrictions, it's challenging but fun! I think my favorite course was the Stilton with local honey, walnuts and port - it really hit the spot! The creamed carrots were an untried recipe from the Titanic cookbook and they turned out to be pretty fabulous too.


I'm happy to say my cake was good too, a huge thing since cakes are my weak point in baking. The marzipan was surprisingly easy to make, the marzipan roses not to much. Apparently I suck at making marzipan roses, Dad ended up making them all for me. Hee.


My outfit came out wonderfully, as did my hair (I watched a lot of Daniel Deronda last week to figure out the hair!) and I felt very much the pretty, pretty princess. I totally need more bustle in my life! For some reason all the pics of just me have the neighbors oddious shed in the background (blah) so I'll need to wear it again and take better pics. Oh darn! :>

After the rest of the party left gilded_garb, girliegirl32786 and I went outside for more pics and ended up in the woods behind my house for silly pics - it was such a ridiculous thing to do in our frocks but SO fun! After that we stripped down to our frilly Victorian undies and spent the evening drinking the open bottles of champagne, sparkling lemonade and wine - plotting and planning costumes for CosCol. A perfect way to end the evening.


The next day we were off to DC to see the pre-Raphaelite exhibit at the National Gallery (which was wonderful!). gilded_garb had never been to DC so it was really fun to show you the sights (there's the White House! See an obese squirrel!). Hee. The picnic on a bench on the Mall and the long cold walk back from the Lincoln memorial were bonding experiences we decided.

The weekend ended far too soon and the house is now far too quiet! I am looking forward to catching up on my sleep though - we didn't do much of that!

My photos (plus a few favorites stolen from A&S!) are here:
The Luncheon | DC Trip


Other's photos:
Isabella - http://www.flickr.com/photos/jubileel/sets/72157625714693415/
Sara - http://www.flickr.com/photos/21105913@N05/sets/72157625732099741/
Aubry - http://www.flickr.com/photos/aubrytamar/sets/72157625864026594/

Sleevils - we hates them precious!

Other than that the mock-ups are going well. I'm hoping to get the sleeves sorted out soon and to move on to cutting my fabirc before dinner tonight. I have pics but I'll save those for the next post.

Party plans are also progressing nicely too. We are going to do a 6 course luncheon in instead of the useal buffet/fingerfood affair. I would never attempt such a thing on my own (becssue I already have and it is impossible to cook, serve, hostess and be in costume at the same time!) but Dad really wants to be a chef for the day. He is so funny. I was teasing him that he should be called Chef Blanc-de-Blanc.

He really wants to serve the food and pour wine too but I keep trying to tell him one person can't do it and that I have willing helpers. I love having a Dad that thinks this is a fun way to spend his weekend. I'm trying not to feel guilty about taking advantage of it but honestly I don't know if I could talk him out of it at this point if I tried. What a lucky girl I am!

So my guests have no idea what they are walking into. :> Makes me wish more of my local costume friends were foodies!

I had a good time at sadievale's annual Pumpkin Tea on Saturday. I didn't take many pics but what I have are here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jennylafleur/sets/72157625342054826/

redthreaded came early and dressed with me then spent the night. It was wonderful to see her again and have a chance to catch up - I hope it's the first of many visits! :>


In other fun Costuming news, there was some serious talk at the tea about an East Coast Costume College or Costuming Retreat weekend. The subject comes up every couple of years but no one has ever been willing to step up to the plate and take it on (including me!). Enter past_blue and "Dress U"!

The original post is here and Victoria has set up an LJ group to get things started here. Currently up for discussion are location (Philly or Richmond) and date (March or June of 2012). I really hope this actually happens - it's way past due!

So yeah, sorry for the radio silence here on the Jennylafleur channel. This past Saturday was the baby shower for a dear friend. Luckily I was co-hosting it since it turned out to be a huge affair. We ended up with over 50 guests - and this was not her only shower! I kept joking that weddings are smaller than this shower. Still it was a blessing to be involved in something that held so much love - it really was a special event for a very special lady.

After months of planning (we started planning the day we found out she was expecting!) the day went off without a major hitch. The decorations came together better than I'd hoped (they were my baby), the food was super yummy (a group effort that), we were right on schedule (no mean feat with that many gifts to open!) and clean-up was a breeze. I still came home feeling like I'd been hit by a truck but it was totally worth it!

Pictures from the shower are on Flickr here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jennylafleur/sets/72157625245954898/

I've been feeling under the weather since, I've got a bit of a cold now, no real surprise after pushing so hard last week. So I'm taking a few mental health days. Yesterday I basically didn't move all day, today I'm hoping to get some peacock beading done at least. We'll see. We had a storm front move in last night and I have a corresponding headache. I don't want to work on something just to have to rip it out later, ya know?