Sylvia's Scenario

The holidays are in full swing now and we had our first little holiday gathering tonight with two of  Bruce's golf buddies and their wives.  We invited them over for dinner and I served this new drink called Holiday Limoncello Spritz.  I prepared it ahead of time so it was ready to serve when people arrived.  It's nice to offer such a festive beverage to your guests at a holiday party to set the tone.  With a drink as beautiful as this, your guests will be in the party spirit in no time.                                         I got this recipe from   Drinks with Danica  who has the most beautiful drink recipes. I love the garnish of rosemary, cranberries (or you can use pomegranate seeds) and lemon which are perfect because it is made with limoncello which acts as an alcoholic simple syrup, of sorts. But it also has pomegranate juice and Prosecco ...

We went to our first Christmas party of the season last night and I just had to post all the festive food ideas.  It was an appetizer, drinks and dessert Christmas party for about eight of us neighbors. It's nice to just walk down the street past three houses and we're there.                          My neighbor, Karen, loves to host parties and I've written about her parties  here  and   here  and other various places.  We've lived on this street going on ten years now and I can't even remember how many of her parties we've been to.  One of her best parties was when she turned 80 a couple of years ago and she had an 80's themed party.  (I went with the Madonna-look). Her food spread is always impressive. That party was in the summer so we could go outside and use her deck which is nice because we all have great views on our street.  Karen is a lot like me in that she loves to ...

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas yesterday. It's amazing how hard we work for this one day of the year and suddenly it's over. Now, here we are, the day after Christmas and I'm still absorbing it all. There were so many things I loved about Christmas this year including my new Christmas cocktail I wanted share. This drink was a very festive addition to a wonderful Christmas evening. My family came over to our house including Lauren; my sister and her husband; my niece and nephew and their families and we had a holly, jolly time. Put it this way, nobody left hungry. But we did more than just eat, of course. We played games  and we opened presents - starting in the morning when Lauren came over and we also had breakfast together before getting ready for the evening.  When everyone was here, we opened more presents. When my extended family gets together for Christmas, we do a white elephant gift exchange. A white elephant gift exchange is when yo...

I tweaked the original Moscow Mule drink so it became a festive cocktail on Christmas and everyone loved them.  We will definitely make them again.  I always like to make one special cocktail drink, along with the usual beer, wine and sodas.  I made simple syrup infused with rosemary, then used rosemary as a garnish.  I also made some sugar-coated cranberries for an additional garnish to give it that festive look.  (roll damp cranberries in sugar and stick on a toothpick)  We had my brother and his family over for Christmas dinner, along with my sister and her husband, and my nephew and his family.  Nick is here from Japan and Lauren was here with her boyfriend, Ari, for a total of 15 people for Christmas dinner this year.  Our Holiday Moscow Mules started the party off on the right foot and soon everyone was in a very festive mood.  Try them, you'll like them.    Makes 1 drink 1.  Fill copper Moscow Mule mug with c...

We had our Christmas party last night and I'd have to say the most popular item served was the punch. The punch bowl was completely dried up by the end and everyone kept commenting how good it was. Since we had more people this year, I decided to serve a punch instead of the usual individual holiday cocktail and this recipe served us well.  Of course, we had lots of other delicious items like the  mustard crusted beef tenderloin  which is turning out to be a Bratney Christmas party tradition and it never fails to please. Another surprising hit from our dinner was the Kale Waldorf Salad that I picked up at a local deli here in town called  a'Tavola .  A friend of mine raved about this salad so I had to investigate and she was right.  We went through 5 quarts for 20 people.   And it looks festive, too.  Normally, you wouldn't think kale salad as a big hit but this one definitely was and I'm always looking for yummy kale dish...