laid flat by sunday dinner

lula's 14th b-day cake: chocolate with ganache, strawberries, whipped cream, & strawberry coulis

 i have a love/hate relationship with sunday dinner.  i love having a whole day to cook grand dishes, i love being with the whole family, plus extensions and friends, i love the opportunity to try new recipes, techniques, and ingredients & to make the table extra pretty.  i hate the stress, the two days of shopping and prep, & how exhausted i am by the end.  i also hate how, every freakin' time, i plan to make it more simple and less stressful and yet i always end up doing the opposite.

oh yeah, and how crabby i get.

so i vow i'm gonna stop,  but then i do it again, or my kids ask me if we can have people over and get all sad when it's just us and we're just having grilled cheese or something.

& i give in & give up.

once again.

hoping that, in the end, it's a worthy endeavor to go all crazy for our sabbath dinner. (cause that's probably what i'm gonna do anyway.)

the menu, on the fridge.  note the backwards "z" on zucchini

rose petals for lula

grilled artichokes with aioli