Work Hard... and then Feast Hard!

Elisa and her family drove all the way from Utah to be with the rest of us for Kenai's blessing. With the entire Zavala clan together, Colomba (the chef!) and my mom master-minded a fun and yummy activity. They randomly divided us in to teams and assigned us each a piece of a meal (main course, salad, drinks, dessert, side dishes). We all met at a U-Pick place called Carver Farms and our task was to pick produce that we would later use to prepare our assigned part of the meal. It was fun to help and watch as the kids picked berries, lettuce, squash, and DIRT (my little red-headed three-year-old nephew, Asher, had fun filling his bucket with dirt clods)!




After the picking, we had a picnic lunch. It was really fun to spend time with the whole family. The kids had fun getting re-acquainted with their cousins and I had fun spending time with my parents, my three sisters and their spouses.

The next day, we all got busy cooking and then met at my parents' home and brought our courses together for a super-fantastic meal. We had pork tenderloin served over creamed corn with a huckleberry chutney (I helped Coyo make this one!), fresh green salad, corn on the cob, foccacia, squash and a variety of fruity and minty drinks followed by a delicious cake beautifully decorated with several different types of fresh berries. Oh man, did we feast!

I included a picture of Brian holding little Kenai. They had a bonding moment as Brian made faces and baby-talked with Kenai and actually made him laugh really hard! It was a tender part of the day - Brian is really good with little kids and it was fun to watch him play with Kenai.