Whew! What a night! We had almost 50 people here to celebrate the official kick off of this blog and partake in lots of homemade treats and cocktails. It was a great night to see good friends and celebrate the work I’ve put in to the blog over these past few months to get it up and running with new content each week.

Each year, for the past 4 years, we’ve hosted a Harvest Party in the fall and each year has been bigger and better than the previous year. Every year I try to incorporate vegetables from the garden and as many jams, jellies, preserves and syrups as I can in to the food and cocktails that I make for the party, to make it a true Harvest party. I repeat some favorites from year to year (I’m looking at you, Asian Plum Duck Tarts and Pickled Spring Onion Deviled Eggs!) but I’m always eager to try new recipes and find unique ways to utilize my growing stash of spring, summer and fall preserves.

I’ll be posting a link soon to all the recipes I made for this event along with the photos that our amazing neighbor, Michelle, took for me. But I wanted to say a big thank you to my parents for coming out from Illinois and who were such a big help with the party prep, our friend Natashe for taking an early train down from NYC to provide her assistance, our neighbor Michelle for her stunning photography skills and to my husband, Toby, for always supporting me with any cooking and baking endeavor that I want to pursue, even when that means weeks of preparation to entertain, feed and imbibe all of our guests at our home, and cleaning up all the resulting dishes!