Weekend afternoons at our house are one of my favorite things these days. The sun comes in through the kitchen window just right. The neighborhood is the perfect combination of lively and quiet. We do things like plant, hang, lounge, bake, craft, create, and nap. Lately, it's been particularly delightful. With the cooler weather comes open windows and patio chilling. And now that our house is pretty well together, I hope to have more daytime visitors.
This past weekend, Dale and I saw friends who were in from out of town. Rather than go out for brunch, we decided to make a Saturday afternoon feast of sorts. We had fresh coffee, Chemexed by Dale, which is a treat for me since most mornings I make it myself, and it's just never quite as good. We also had a veggie-loaded frittata with zucchini, mushrooms, tomatoes, and things. I made some butternut squash pancakes with buckwheat and oat flours. And Dale made these damn delicious Bloody Marys. Because my friend can't eat gluten (unless she wants to pass out and feel like poop), everything we made was gluten-free, including the Bloody Marys. It's sort of weird to me that Worcestershire sauce is not gluten-free and is typically not vegan either, so Dale left it out and came up with this amazing concoction, which I have officially declared my favorite Bloody Mary of all time. We found the cutest gluten-free salami sticks at Whole Foods, which we used to garnish. These Bloody Marys fit in perfectly with the rest of our epic brunch, with the chatting, and with the porch sitting, perfect weather afternoon.
