The party was yesterday. My mom was thrilled. The only problem with hosting a 90th birthday party is the number of people who are no longer with us, that you would give anything to have one more conversation with. But I guess that was actually what was special about yesterday, the conversations that were able to take place. Family and friends came from all over. There were people I had not seen in decades. While we were remembering the past, we were also able to look to the future. My son's family will be adding another branch to the family tree any day now!
I was very pleased with the way the food turned out. The Italian Beef Pinwheels were a huge hit. They were almost too simple to make. I used Louie's Italian Beef aus jus seasoning rather than making my own. It was quicker and tasted better than anything I have made.
The twice smoked salmon was also good, (even though I only smoked it once and then baked it). I did brine the filets while they were frozen. I don't think it worked very well and probably won't try that again.
Rather than using garlic bread, we toasted 2 inch rye squares in garlic butter on a griddle. Normally I would just chunk up the salmon and stir in the other ingredients. However, since we were using such small portions of bread, everything was mixed in a mixer. We used a one ounce scoop per potion and covered with grated cheese before rebaking.
I must say, even though the food was good, it paled in comparison to the birthday cake my wife made. It was a Hummingbird Cake, with bananas, pineapple and some other fruit. She used cream cheese frosting in-between the layers and butter cream frosting to ice and decorate it.
Here are a few pictures (I hope)! I took some food pictures with my old phone, so they should show up. I appreciate the detailed help and advice from yir. Actually my new phone is an android, but at some point I will try and get it figured out.
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I love how the counter matches the gravy.
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This is after they had been sitting out for a while, so the picture doesn't really do it justice.
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