Food with friends

Four months have passed since we moved into our new place.  One thing that I love about our new house is that the layout of the house.  It is about the same size as our last place but here our kitchen is smaller but the living room/dining room has enough room for a dining table and chairs!

Since we have moved into a house where we can have people over to eat we have thrown three dinners and a brunch.  I have learned that I don’t have to have design beautiful place settings, matching glasses, or a spotless modern house to have people over.  To be honest we barely have enough chairs for people and just enough room for people to squeeze around the table.  But the more the merrier. 

I love good food and good people.  Sharing food with people is an intimate thing that we do with people that we care about.  I think that most people don’t share food with people that don’t care for.  Eating with people that I care about is something that I love to do.  For the last two years we have been meeting with friends for Sunday “breakfast club” at The Dish in Frellard (in Seattle that is in between the Fremont and Ballard neighborhoods).  Noodles, ramen or odon, in the University district at Samurai Noodle or U:don are a regular monthly dinner with friends.  Shanghai Garden is a favorite spot for fresh, delicious Chinese food, especially for birthdays because of the large round tables for lots if people.  Also just next door the Yummy House Bakery has beautiful cakes for any occasion and perfect for grabbing a birthday cake before meeting for dinner at Shanghi Garden for a birthday celebration.

Last night we had friends over to our place for a grown up pizza party.  The pizza came from Veraci’s.  A favorite place for my husband and I to get pizza.  The pies are wood fire, neapolitan and delicious.  They offer gluten free dough that is the best that I have ever tasted and even offer it “on stone” for those who have a high sensitivity to gluten so that the crust is crispy and don’t get mixed up with the other dough.  It is also a wonderful way to introduce our friends from different circles to one and other.  This morning, sitting at my dining room table drinking my coffee and thinking about last night makes me thankful for  food and friends.

P.S. I am also thankful for my mother, who brought me four of my grandmothers chairs a few hours before dinner.