Maifest

Last weekend, we invited over some friends and celebrated the coming summer!  We went shopping at Morant's, the local German butcher and picked up some fresh Nürnberger bratwurst and weisswurst for the grill:

It looks like a lot of meat, but only 3 bratwurst were left!

And then we prepared a pitcher of Maibowle:  sparkling wine, white wine, fresh fruit and herbs.  Sort of the German answer to Sangria:



Earlier in the week, I prepared two ice creams:  a chocolate fudge pop-kinda ice cream and an herbed ice milk (made with herbs from the garden:  basil, lemon verbena, lemon balm, tarragon, mint, and thyme).  And I prepared a French potato salad (no German this time--Ginger is vegetarian).

That was pretty much the extent of our preparation--other than de-husking some corn and preparing green beans.  Otherwise, all we needed were our friends!

L-R:  Hellen, Derek, Ross, Amber, Gropius, and Ginger

While the adults enjoyed munchies with our pre-dinner Maibowle, Lulu and Stella (Ross and Amber's little girl) enjoyed playing "hotel" in our bedroom:

I can't believe how tolerant Dido was of the whole thing--she's sitting on my pillow

And then we settled down to the task of eating:

Grilled turnips, sausage, black bean salad, green beans, potato salad, and sauerkraut

I had hoped that we could enjoy the weather and sit outside on the patio, but it was unseasonably hot last weekend, so we ended up sitting indoors and admiring the sunshine from a safe distance....