Weekend Food and Fun!

So as I mentioned on Monday, the highlight of my weekend was attending a birthday party at Nikki's parents house for her mother's sister.

That was a lot of fun.

It was preceded by a promise to bring cookies... which I do anyways. I NEVER show up anywhere empty handed.

More on that later.

I had a nice time.

And I tell you, when those folks cook? They cook it up for real. The charcoal grill was going full blast when I walked up.

I didn't get pictures of everything. We were too busy all in the kitchen... throwing elbows, jocking for position.

I myself was very much interested in the fruit and the salad.

If the lights would've gone out, I would've picked up that tray of fruit and ran out of the house. It was good and sweet.

They had some serious food. I didn't get the pictures I wanted because there were so many people. But check this out...

Ribs... dirty rice... macaroni and cheese (which was insanely good)... and some type of ramen noodle dish (I think it was yakamein. Where is BayouCreole chick at? Explain that to me. I didn't have any while I lived in New Orleans). I didn't get any of that, but man it looked good.

Those ribs are off the grill... so I know they had to be good. They sure smelled good.

There was baked chicken...

And lasagna.

There was no eggplant parmesean. But Mama Nikki hooked up some spinach lasagna. I didn't get any of that. I thought I would go back for that, but I was laid out on the sofa after I finished my first plate, lol.

Rumor had it that there was some good gumbo around. I didn't see it. But people were taring it up. I think that went fast.

There was some GREAT caramel cake.

Caramel cake is my cubicle mate CowgirlCre's favorite cake. This was good because it wasn't caramel icing out of the can. This was the real deal... somebody messed around and melted some caramel candy cubes or something like that, and made that icing from scratch!

Oh my! It was good. I wanted another piece to take home. But I am to shy to grab a plate of anything to take home. (Even though others were lined up and with plates and foil... gotta love our people, lol!)

Like I said, I had a good time. They know they can cook up some good food!

And you know what? I brought some cookies... I think I made 4 dozen: 2 dozen triple chocolate chip pecan, and 2 dozen oatmeal raisin cranberry walnut cookies.

But no one saw them after I brought them in. I remember sitting them on the dining room table.

I started getting pointed questions.

"Where the cookies at?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "I don't know. But I brought them in. You better ask Mama Nikki and her sister. They were in the room when I sat them down."

I got a hard side-eye from some folks. LOL

Not my problem. I wanted one cookie. And my cookie was at home sitting on my kitchen counter.

When I was leaving, Mama Nikki and her sister were outside smoking cigarettes.

I stopped to talk to them. "Uh, people looking for the cookies. Where did ya'll put them?"

"We're not leaving those cookies out. Are you crazy?"

LOL. That happens a lot with my cookies. That happened at CowgirlCre's family gathering back around Labor day.  The ish gets put up. And I get the hard stares, as if I forgot to bring them. I know I took 6 dozen cookies to one of CowgirlCre's family dinners and they all disappeared in less than a minute. So I do understand that you cannot just leave them just sitting out. Nerp.

"You can put them out," I said to the sister. "I can just run you a tin of them out here before you go back to New York. I live downtown, only 20 minutes away. Not a problem to run out here real quick."

"I want to save some for my trip home," she said.

I blinked. "You gonna be here for three weeks, though. I wouldn't save cookies for that long."

Both took a toke on their cigarettes and pondered my statement. The sister had a determined look on her face. I convinced her to just let me bring her a fresh batch the day before she goes home. 3 week old cookies gotta be stale and nasty.

They were still looking at me crazy.  LOL

Too funny.

I had a great time with Nikki's folks...

Yes, I missed Nikki's presence... I still expect to hear her holler "Lee!" when I walk through the door. But there was some of who she was still there with everyone in attendance. And that's a good thing.