The White Elephant Food

Guests to the White Elephant party were asked to bring either food or drink to share with the other party goers.  Well, most guests brought drink!  Luckily my old friend Mark is a chef and had flown in from Minneapolis to help me cook for the party. 

Here Mark and I are preparing the crustini.

A lovely pot of fresh cranberry sauce (made from scratch) simmers on the stove.

Some of my famous devilled eggs sit next to a plate of mushroom, shallot, and rosemary crustini.  The rosemary was fresh from one of my own plants, still growing hearty on my window sill in December!

Here's a plate of local, organic honey crisp apples with some regional sharp white cheddar cheese.

Here is the crustini with the cranberry sauce and a cheese whose name I forget.  It was made from goats milk as well as sheeps milk, with some penicillin bacteria injected to give it a delicious and mild funkiness!

Champagne was the primary drink of choice, though some guests preferred some delicious beers.  One of the White Elephant gifts was actually a four pack of Sprecher's Abbey Tripel which is made right here in Milwaukee.  I was told by the guest who won it that it was quite delicious.  More on the gift exchange in my next blog entry!