Back to the Grindstone!

Friday, I headed back to work after a lovely twelve days off of doing exactly what I wanted.  Those days began with a stay at work, oddly enough, to be able to take Samantha, our lovely extern from the CIA to dinner.  Krissy, Katie, Jessica and I feted Sam, shown in the center here in my room.  The rooms at the Farm are very un-farm-like, as you can see.  Behind those drawings is a big fat t.v., and to the right of our group is the sofa I spent quite a few hours lounging on before everyone showed up.
  We all forgot our cameras at dinner, but we took some photos before and after.  The girls were admiring the bathroom and wanted their picture taken there.  It was definitely large enough for all of them.
  After dinner, we greeted Giselle who'd been working hard to plate our desserts.  Please notice Sam's dress!  She was very proud that she only spent $3.57 on it, and it looked fabulous on her!

 






 Last night was our fundraiser for the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra, the reason I cut my vacation short from two whole weeks to twelve days, and I'm glad I did, after all.  The dessert took two days to create.  It's a Symphony of Chocolate, C Major in Three Movements.  It's dark, milk and white chocolate, with a little Meyer lemon thrown in for contrast.  The servers loved eating the leftovers, but hated carrying it out.  It's a good thing I don't normally see how things make it to the tables when I create something like this.  I'm sure there were treble clefs on their backs all over the place!
  A chamber group played after dinner, and I wanted to hear them, but not as much as I wanted to get home and let Bella out.  I'm always disappointed when co-workers post photos of the Barn at night because the photos never show how beautiful it is, but I'm going to do it here.  The group started playing; they're in front of the fireplace, and it just looked incredible, sounded even better.  Sorry if you can't really see what's going on, but there's a man standing up with his back to the camera.  He's conducting, and the little illuminated ovals are the musicians.  The tree-like things are the supports for the barn roof, huge rustic beams.

Well, somebody's got to make the desserts for tonight.  Might as well be me!  Enjoy the beautiful un-wintery day!