Another birthday

Yesterday Eric and I drove to Lake Odessa to visit with Mark’s family and celebrate October birthdays (Eric and Mark, in fact). Since Eric already got his gift, I didn’t bring it with us, but he got some very thoughtful gifts from the folks there.

Mark is my mother-in-law’s boyfriend, and he is a wonderful man. He is very generous, thoughtful, and he is super geeky, so we get along great. He bought the furniture that is in our guest room, and he is basically just a great person. I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do for him, but after they came over for dinner one night, and he seemed very appreciative of my homemade pasta, I decided to make him “Italian Dinner in a Basket.”

I forgot to get pictures, but here’s the process:

1. I opened a beer and played some Hugo on my iTunes.

2. I made some sauce from scratch. At the suggestion of my mom, who is brilliant, I cooked the tomatoes for about an hour instead of just blending them right away. I blanched them first, peeled them, chopped them, then let them simmer in oil, red wine vinegar, garlic, and spices. This was the best sauce I have made yet.

3. I have semolina flour finally! So I did half semolina, half all purpose, and I made some fettuccine with my pasta maker.

4. I canned the sauce and let the noodles dry over night. Then I bagged the noodles.

5. We bought a middle-of-the-road wine (Mark used to work at a winery, actually) and included that in the basket.

6. I wrote an instruction card, and we covered the whole lot in a nice dish towel.

We also made him a card. I bought a pack of photo cards (you put your own photo in there) on my last day at Michaels, and we painted the front to make it look less…white.

It was quite a hit! And, fittingly, my sister-in-law gave him a decorative cork holder. In vino veritas, my friends!

So now it’s onto my mom’s birthday gift and then Christmas. I am getting excited about it all. I am also getting psyched for NaNoWriMo, and it will be interesting to see how I fit writing and crafting and cooking and full time retail in together.

Coming up next: I will turn an over sized t-shirt into a fitted tee! Theoretically.