the peter f. yacht club regatta, 2013;

While we usually hold a Christmas reading/party/regatta, hosted by The Peter F. Yacht Club, somewhere between Christmas and New Year, this year Christine and myself hosted a small pot-luck. In part to show off the house and our new five-week-old Rose, it was also a sign of our inability to easily leave the house; we thought, why not bring the party to us, instead?

With roughly a third of those invited unable to make it, we still managed to host some twenty people or more in our little house, as I spent the day baking in preparation. Pearl Pirie posted photos of the cake I made for such over at her food blog, as well as the creamy spaghetti squash primavera and the asparagus and white bean salad I prepared (the fourth photo of her quartet I wasn't responsible for). Given that at least one of our group is vegan and has a gluten allergy, I spent more than a week online seeking out recipes.

During the day, I also prepared a lovely beef stew, and an apple/pear (Japanese pear) crisp. And why is there a cow on the cake? Well, I couldn't find any yacht/nautical cake-y decorations at any of the dollar-stores I visited; and who doesn't love cows?

[A lovely wooden item gifted to us by the Piries] We were able to host a ton of Yacht Club regulars and irregulars, including Monty Reid, Sarah Hill and their Frances, Brecken Hancock, Amanda and Charles Earl, Pearl and Brian Pirie, Sandra Ridley, Roland Prevost and Janice Tokar, Vivian Vavassis, Rhonda Douglas, Marilyn Irwin and plenty of others. I could barely keep track! And, given the distraction of food, house and baby, I took barely any photographs. We stayed up far too late, had so much food and wine that we ended with more than we began, and never even got to the readings. Perhaps next year we'll be able to be public again, and Rose will allow us out of the house long enough to host our regular reading/regatta/party back at The Carleton Tavern!

And who knows -- now that we have a house and are beginning to settle, we may even be gearing up for regular meetings again in 2014; perhaps even a new issue? I'm already gearing up to a whole slew of new above/ground press chapbooks by Camille Martin, Nicholas Lea, Hugh Thomas, David Phillips and more; keep watching this space!