A Three Dessert Kind of Day

The best thing about working for the family business is the parties. We never miss an opportunity for a party. And my coworkers are really great at accomodating dietary restrictions. After all, I’m not the only gluten-freebie – there are actually four of us!

In previous years, we’ve put on a potluck at Thanksgiving, but this year it was put to a vote, and majority ruled to have a pizza party instead. The company always orders pizza from Garlic Jim’s, because they have gluten-free crusts, and I have never been glutened by their pizza. This time, we also got cheeseless gluten-free pizza for the lactose intolerants.

And us girls who work in the front office got together and had our own little potluck to go with the pizza. I brought exactly what I wanted – veggie crudites and hummus. I’m not sure why, but I think hummus and pizza are a perfect pair, even though one’s Middle Eastern and the other Mediterranean. Maybe because they’re both so garlicky?

My slice of pizza was particularly garlicky, with a couple of cloves of roasted garlic, as well as pepperoni and sausage.

I went back for more chips and hummus, then dessert …

Gluten-free cake, made with ground almonds, satsumas, eggs, and lots of sugar! My coworker who baked the cake made the leftover mixture into muffins that were less muffin and more cupcake and that we ate with breakfast … Great start to the day

And for dinner, the whole fam went to dinner to celebrate my mom’s birthday, which was on Thursday. Her birthdate is 11/17, two prime numbers, and likes to remind us every year that Shakespeare said “there is genius in prime numbers.”

Mom picked Salty’s on Alki for her birthday dinner, a seafood restaurant in my neighborhood with the best views of downtown Seattle. It’s one of my very favorite restaurants. Good choice, mom.

I went a little bacon crazy – first a BLT salad, which had Parmesan cheese and fresh mint and basil pesto to go with the bacon and tomatoes.

Then cedar roasted salmon with rosemary mashed potatoes and enormous spears of asparagus. And behind the salmon filet – more chunks of bacon! GFP (that’s my dad, Gluten-Free Popsie) had the same thing, and we both agreed that we would’ve been just as happy with a bowlful of the bacon. It was crispy on the outside, and melty on the inside. So good.

Those are roasted shallots on top of the fish, but I know they look kind of like slugs in my picture.

And since I’d already had two desserts, I split a creme brûlée with GFP.

It was one of those meals that made me think I’ll probably never be hungry again – but now that I’m looking at the pictures, I guess that’s not the case! For breakfast today, I’m thinking more bacon …