Coconut Cake

My family was never religious, at least not beyond my early childhood. But we always celebrate Easter as though we are commemorating something. I guess we are just commemorating our existence as a family in this new spring season. It is always a pretty fancy affair, that is our way.

This year I decided to host the event and made a coconut cake for my father, who covets cakes. It took much work and concentration and many eggs.

To be perfectly honest, I made it so long ago, I can't remember from where the recipe came. But I do know that it had three layers...

And a butter cream frosting.

The cake was excessively crumbly, at least from my perspective. But everyone who ate it loved it. It was quite rich and filling...as one often finds with these kinds of butterloaded stacked confections. I took the remains to work the following Monday and my ex-boss told me that it reminded him of cakes his mother used to make--a sweet compliment to arouse maternal nostalgia in another.

Portuguese Night?: Women's Night Part 2

Hard to believe but the second annual women's night convened two weeks ago (maybe it was three weeks ago). Each participant brought a bottle to two bottles of wine; so as far as inebriants were concerned, we were set. Was it an authentically Portuguese nosh, not so much. I mean who really wants to eat salt cod and potato stew? So we interpolated Portuguese to mean Mediterranean:

Cheese with various fruit spreads and cakes and marinated veg.

Lovely scallops, thanks to the lovely Hanna ( you may remember her as as the brownie guest blogger).

And much bread. Every participant brought a loaf of bread with their bottle of wine. Consequently, we each downed at least a loaf dipped and topped with the various dips and toppings. Luckily, I brought a watermelon. After all the cheeses and crab dip and scallops and vegs, we plowed through it like a herd of dehydrated water buffalo (you can imagine how thirsty water buffalo get when dehydrated).

Ok, I admit it. The pictures are crap and this blog is hardly au courant. But what can I say, at least I'm here. It's summer. I am done with school, so you can expect more contemporaneous blogging. At least that is my hope.

I know you are waiting with bated breath to find out the next women's night's food region/theme. Below is a clue (No, this is not a picture of Women's Night 2 participants).