I've been in New Mexico visiting my family for a few weeks and had the opportunity to try cooking a few things that I've wanted to make for a long time. Due to a generous gift of certain food items that had been given to my mom, I was able to make a bunch of really fun stuff for pretty cheap. Over my next couple of posts I'll be showing you all the different dishes that I made for a huge gourmet dinner, in the order of the courses in which they were served.

My little sister Nina was my official assistant in all the menu decisions, guest invitations, and food preparations. We spent about two days figuring out the menu and making a plan for how we were going to accomplish all the cooking. Then we did all the cooking over a period of three days. In the end, we served a three course meal to eleven people. It was really fun and the food turned out amazing.

My older sister Marquette was the official event photographer, and I think did a great job. She made sure to get pictures of every dish we made. My younger sister Carolyn was in charge of decorations and table settings. I was pretty impressed with what she accomplished. Our mom was there through the whole thing to lend a helping hand or word of advice through the entire process. It was so much fun to get to work on this with all of them.