Scenes from the Four-square: Dinner for fifty

So maybe you thought our days were leisured and lazy. Making nice breakfasts for ourselves and doing crosswords with a cat on the lap....

In actuality, we lead panicked -- I mean packed lives filled with projects and tasks. If we found ourselves with ten seconds free, we'd immediately start to work on curing cancer.

So this week's project is the wedding reception for Ms. Art Attack. Fifty to sixty guests.

It will be at a local party spot up in the Oakland hills which is lovely and atmospheric -- with a nice kitchen -- but of course most of the cooking will take place in our Four Square foot kitchen.

"I'm so scared for you guys!" said Cindy from Food Migration with wide-eyed sympathy as we discussed our beef blowtorching techniques over some Zuni chicken.

We're kinda scared too, to be honest. We've catered other weddings -- we did our own, but never for quite this many people. Still, I trust our powers of organization (I like to label everything to within an inch of its life) and we're counting on the calming vibes of the Cheese Kitty will keep our blood pressure down.

We spent Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday shopping. Whole Foods, Trader Joes, Smart and Final, Bed Bath and Beyond, Swan Oyster Depot, Spun Sugar, Cowgirl Creamery, Sur la Table.... I'm shopped out. No really, I don't want to go into another food store for a while. Hah. Not likely.

Here are some scenes from the kitchen frenzy:

As noted many times before, we don't have a lot of space, so I started the wedding cake on Wednesday.

We're making a Hazelnut Coriander cake with a praline ganache filling.

With that many peoploe I'm a little worried about making enough, but we're doing three layers of 12", 10" and 9".

Don't ask how many eggs we're using...







Kitty has some opinons about the 12" layer. Needs some chocolate he thinks...










Everyone's a critic.












Eric is also quietly curing his famous Whisky-cured Gravlax in Ms. Art Attack's fridge (cause we have NO ROOM at the inn. Salmon from Swan's -- we love the guys at Swan's. More from them when we get to the Dungeness Crab madness....