Feasts, walks and sleepovers.

What a wonderful weekend we've had. On Friday afternoon, Larry and I tootled off to Burlington to spend some precious moments with Emi and Kevin and Soe. The girls had gone to great pains to plan a birthday celebration for their old Mum, and Kevin very generously, not only provided, but also cooked, the pork chops. Soe's completely delicious Roasted Beet Crostini added a bright, unexpected sweet and sour accompaniment to the rest of the meal, which included the aforementioned pork chops, homemade applesauce, done in the oven, and Mustard Greens and Bulgur. This was all followed up by an exquisite Pineapple-Coconut Layer Birthday Cake, an extremely ambitious climax to an already supercalifragilisticexpialidocious meal. What a gift of love and generosity. How blessed we are with our daughters and their boys. I feel very priveleged and extremely well-loved. Although everything was splendid, we missed Hanushka, too far away to have been part of the evening...(The recipes can be found in the February 2008 issue of Eating Well magazine). After dinner, we took the dogs for a walk on the golf course. We didn't need headlamps, the moonlight shining on the snow was light enough. The dogs had such a romp, and we walked off a good portion of the meal. When we finally (!) made it home, we all collapsed contentedly onto our beds and slept the sleep of the satiated. I love sleepovers...I wonder why we stop having them. I used to sleep over at Cally's house and stay up all night telling ghost stories and eating jam sandwiches under the sheet tent we made. Breakfast in the morning was the sweet dessert of the fabulous sleep-over feast. She lived a stone's throw from our house, and we saw each other every day, but a sleep-over...mmm, heaven!