Getting ready for it...

Yesterday was amusing, though probably more for me than for Lil. See, I'm having this party on Sunday, which involves various large quantities of seafood, and tasty foodstuffs... And Lil had graciously offered to tootle me around town in order to get said various foodstuffs - as long as I got to her house by around 10 am.

So, Friday morning found me waking up fairly early (For me, on a day off) and tootling across town on Tri-Met to meet her at her house... Only to find that no one was up yet.

I settled down into the house for about 10 minutes, being trod upon by various felines wandering through the front room, demanding attention. Jen came over from next door, as she'd heard me come by and was curious as to whom it was. It was then I found out that poor Lil had just gone to bed about an hour before.

Jen and I headed back over to her house next door and chatted for a while. I'd left my phone at Lil's, and apparently it tipped off the girls, both Angst and Anxiety, that their Auntie was by for a visit, and they came next door and piled onto me. About two hours later, I decided it was time to at least find out whether Lil and I were heading out for shopping or not. Anxiety went up and apparently the conversation was as follows:

Anxiety: "mummy -"
Lil: "What?"
A: "Mummy, I think you forgot something."
L: "Oh gods! What did I forget?"
A: "[auntie]..."
L: "Oh shit."

Anxiety returned and relayed that message to us, which we all giggled about for a bit, and then Lil came by with a mug of coffee and a wan look on her face. Turns out, working on yule gifties for people has managed to mess with her whole sleep schedule. She's not been a very happy camper this whole week.

We waited until she was somewhat awake, then headed out the door and over to Pacific Seafood, where I picked up about 5 lbs worth of mussels and about 5.5 lbs worth of butter clams. I would have picked up crawfish, but they didn't have any that were cheap (at least, not as far as I was concerned). They gave me a discount because I dropped that I was doing catering, and the amount I purchased was indicative of doing a party. LOL. Lil's face, as I was discussing this whole thing with the gal who was helping us, was priceless. Then she gave us the discount, and Lil's face was even MORE priceless. Bwa ha ha ha. It's good to know a chef when shopping for seafood.

We then headed to WinCo, where I went forth and purchased about 2 lb's of bay scallops and 4 dungeoness crabs (had them clean 'em - it's easier), shrimp, prucchiuto, and about 3 lbs of chorizo. I also got lots of garlic, 3 avocados, some leeks, chives, dill and sage, wheat thins, soda, breadsticks, and Lil got 2 kinds of pie. I forgot the whipped cream, but that's ok - I can pick some up tonight along with the crab boil stuff. Tonight I'm pickin' crab, and mixing up the crab salad for the hors d'hovres... crab and avocado with garlic, lemon and a little dill. Num!

Tomorrow will be a lot of cooking - but there's not much I can do tonight, except for the crab salad, and perhaps cleaning the leeks. Tomorrow I'll be deep frying up leek rings, prepping the clams, mussels and crab, getting the onions and potatoes ready, frying up the chorizo and adding it to everything, then doing a big ol' steam in the oven with everything in there, frying up the scallops with leeks and butter with a little sage and chive, and then watch everyone DIVE in.

I love feeding my friends. *giggle*

Tonight, I do get a really good thing - Fae and Ally are coming down, and I get a ride home (Yay me!) with their wonderful company (REALLY yay me!). I think we'll have about 10 people there for the dinner. Still haven't heard about Lyse, GD or Kyla, so I don't know whether they're coming or not... I'll plan on 10, though. I think we'll have enough food for everyone.

~M