A Late Summer Business Luncheon at My Farm
Sometimes, getting out of the office and enjoying a business meeting over lunch, al fresco, is a very good thing.
Yesterday, I hosted a small luncheon at my farm for a group of colleagues. I served chicken salad sandwiches, steak sandwiches, beet salad garnished with dill, a light and delicious chicken soup, and bread pudding with whipped cream for dessert - all homemade using vegetables just picked from the garden. Temperatures were in the low 70s, so we dined outside on my terrace parterre. It was an excellent lunch and a most productive and interesting meeting.
Here are some photos, enjoy.
-
- The garden is still providing lots of wonderful, delicious vegetables. I am often asked what I do with all the vegetables I grow. Of course, I share most of them with my family, but I also use them for video and photography shoots, and for entertaining. These beets were just picked for my business luncheon.
-
- Inside my Winter House, I decorated the rooms using flowers grown right here at the farm. These are amaranth and dahlia blooms.
-
- Amaranth is an annual ornamental plant characterized by long colorful flower clusters in orange, gold, purple, red, white, or pink – some that are trailing and these that produce upright plumes.
-
- The dahlias are also still going strong. Dahlias bloom from midsummer until the first fall frost. Here at my farm, I had dahlias blooming in June, and hopefully they’ll continue until Halloween.
-
- I like to display seasonal flowers or plants throughout my home whenever I entertain. This is an all dahlia arrangement in bold shades of pink.
-
- And here are some dahlias on my servery counter in shades of orange.
-
- For my salad, I boiled the beets, removed the skins, and sliced them uniformly.
-
- To prepare my sandwiches, I cut thick slices of bread, buttered each one lightly, and then dressed with chicken salad.
-
- I took the following photos to show each stage.
-
- My chicken salad includes celery, diced apples, mayonnaise, and a touch of salt.
-
- On top, I added fresh arugula just picked from my garden.
-
- Each plate included a side of beets garnished with dill, also from my garden.
-
- For the two gentlemen at my table, who needed more than just one sandwich, I made steak sandwiches, also dressed with fresh garden arugula.
-
- And as a vegetarian option, a mozzarella and beet sandwich.
-
- Everything looked so delicious on the table served on my Martha Stewart Gilded Drabware Wedgwood plates.
-
- I served a light and refreshing chicken soup in tea cups and saucers. My soup includes freshly picked vegetables, and pasta.
-
- More dahlias were picked just minutes before lunch to decorate the table.
-
- Joining us outdoors – my beautiful Empress Qin and Luna Moona. Where is Crème Brûlée?
-
- And for dessert, we enjoyed bread pudding I made the day before, with dollops of fresh whipped cream.
-
- And here is my handsome Emperor Han looking on with curiosity, and hope for something to fall his way. It was a perfect day for a homemade luncheon at Cantitoe Corners.
Martha Pins
Martha Tweets
