That's Italian!

I love the flavors of Italy

Food full of flavor and most dishes are rather easy.

Not fussy at all like French cuisine can be!

A friend (one of the Lunch Bunch, actually) had her daughter

visiting from Vermont

I invited both to lunch

And since 3 is an odd number,

I asked another friend to join us

I'm in the midst of

a - baking 1000 cookies for a PEO fundraiser

b - getting the house trim painted and two upstairs ceilings repaired

But an easy lunch for 4 can be worked into any day!

I love lace -- Italians as well as French and Spanish and Irish

embrace lace for curtains and tablecloths

You can never go wrong with lace!

Spode Blue Room

(you can never go wrong with blue transfer ware either!)

A menu

Jim's grandmother's cutlery

And a damask napkin

(freshly ironed)

in a silver ring

The centerpiece?

An old blue and white bowl

Filled with potting soil and planted with wheat grass

(A gift from one of my St. Patrick's Day guests)

Malted milk eggs hidden here and there in the grass

And if you look closely, you can see a wee iron rabbit

(who usually lives outdoors in the faux du bois planter)

The menu as easy as the table setting

A salad of kale, dried apricots and almonds

with an Amber ale vinaigrette

(the dressing has maple syrup in it -- a nod to our Vermont guest)

And pasta with my homemade pesto and a good shower of Parm.

Garnished with basil from the windowsill.

Whenever I have company, I always try to use "fork able" pasta --

No "slurping"!

And dessert was as easy as the rest of the meal --

A citrus olive oil cake

Baked the night before

Full of good citrus zest and toasted almonds

A sprinkle of powdered sugar to make it "pretty"

Served with a strawberry compote

Made of sliced strawberries, some simple syrup and a big splash of Grand Marnier

And all topped with whipped cream also with a smaller splash of Grand Marnier!

I enjoyed getting to know friend Sally's daughter.

I had heard so much about her --

it was nice to get to visit with her!

It was a lovely afternoon

And the workmen (at least painters are quieter than carpenters) were forgotten

As was the hundreds of cookies that soon would be coming out of Linderhof's kitchen.

It's Thursday and I'm joining Susan at Between Naps On the Porch for Tablescape Thursday