September is celebration month in our household - 2 out of 3 of us have September birthdays and birthdays call for celebration! Actually, a lot of things call for celebration, and I believe in celebrating in style!
First day of fall? Celebrate with fall flavors for a special dinner!
Survived the week? Celebrate with a Friday night feast - it might be take-out, but that doesn’t mean the table can’t be beautifully set and the take out containers banished in favor of an elegant meal that feels more like pampering!
Most of our celebrations, you might notice, center around food…and setting a pretty table is part of what makes the celebration feel, well, celebratory!
James Farmers latest book, Celebrating Home, contains the quote “…what I love about the south is that nothing is too insignificant to celebrate…”. Maybe it’s my Southern birthright, but I wholeheartedly embrace that attitude!
This weekend, we celebrated another birthday, so today I’m sharing some of how we set the mood for that significant life event!
The Menu
The birthday boy decided on the dinner menu of pasta carbonara and the cake choice of chocolate cake with mocha icing.
The cake was inspired by a humble grocery store cake that yours truly was addicted to…give me ALL the mocha flavor and ALL the buttercream frosting! Sadly, the current iteration is not as good as the version I remember, so I planned to make my own.
The diva suggested an antipasto/charcuterie spread and fall cocktails to start the festivities.
There is only much time in the week these days, so I made a mecca to Trader Joes to acquire the needed ingredients for the cake and entree, and purchase prepared selections for the pre-dinner nosh rather than making them.
Charcuterie Course
I chose items for the charcuterie for color as well as flavor. Fall reds and oranges and yellows would look terrific on a dark wood board I recently bought for a kitchen photo shoot.
Creating a visually appealing composition is just as important as the taste for a pleasant and engaging dining experience.
This course was arranged on our living room coffee table with pretty printed paper cocktail napkins with pumpkins, and grapevine embossed small plates all in shades of green.
Serving pieces included ceramic and silver and warm wooden pieces punctuated by oversize twine and burlap acorns.
Cured meats, cheeses, rosemary flavored crackers, assorted spreads, olives, and two varieties of seasoned nuts were joined by miniature peppers, fresh raspberries, and preserved dried orange slices.
French baguettes were warmed and sliced as a perfect accompaniment.
The diva made seasonally appropriate cranberry apple mule cocktails to pair with this first course.
After an appropriate break and some cardio activity playing Dance Dance Revolution on an old school Play Station, we reconvened and prepared dinner.
The Table
The dining table was set with fall themes and textures in neutral colors. Embroidered round linen placements with scalloped edges were a gift from Brazil. These were topped with brown woven rattan charger plates.
These charger plates are SO versatile and, alongside the live edge wood salad bowls bequeathed to me by my mom, add warmth and texture and a casual elegance to any table setting no matter the season.
New linen dinner napkins printed with taupe and sage pumpkins, and actual mini white pumpkins at each place setting nod to the season without the screaming orange color.
Pasta bowls from Williams Sonoma that I’ve had for 30+ years have different herb patterns in shades of green, and sit atop our everyday white embossed dinner plates.
An ironstone pitcher of sage eucalyptus provides a simple centerpiece backdrop.
The whole effect is casual, but special enough to be celebratory.
The Main Course
Dinner was a triumph. The pasta carbonara from the Serious Eats recipe was perfect - silky and rich. The salad with homemade vinaigrette balanced the pasta beautifully and gave us some virtuous greens :). Warmed Trader Joes cheese and onion focaccia (OMG that stuff is delicious!), and a crisp Vin Soave Italian white wine finished off the simple but delicious entree course.
The Dessert Course
And dessert…ah the cake. It was a huge success, and I mean huge literally. I made this up out of an amalgam of recipes as there seems to be no single recipe for a chocolate cake with mocha buttercream.
The cake turned out to be kind of colossal, It would easily serve 14-16. And there are only 3 of us so we barely made a dent. The leftovers are pushing the limits of my cake dome - it BARELY fits under it. But I’m sure it will disappear in a few days anyway. There are always a lot of volunteers to help with such activities!
Chocolate layer cake with mocha Swiss buttercream frosting embellished with chocolate covered espresso beans.
I’ll share the recipe in another post, but this was one of the best classic cakes I’ve made yet, so it is destined to be on the regular rotation of delicious desserts here and will definitely make it to the Nutcrackers Sweets Annual Dessert Party roster when we eventually get to the point it is safe to have a large gathering again.
All in all a successful celebration and a very Happy Birthday to my son!
Happy Fall!
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