Emma's 2.1

The big 2.1! We decided on having a meal, everybody bringing either food or drinks in contribution, and then we'd do some sketches cos Emma loves English Lit. George and I went shopping for supplies during the day and also to pick up Emma's birthday present. I came up with the idea of getting Emma a large print of a NUPACE group photo and then having it framed. Admittedly, I'd stolen the idea from Charlotte's birthday present to me, which I absolutely love. She had a picture of me picking shells in Sri Lanka blown up and put in a beautiful silver frame. Its so gorgeous, and so I thought Emma would really like something similar.

It took us over an hour to hunt down the frame, and then the problem of printing the photo since the shop couldnt print it off a CD. Its stupid I know. To cut a long story short, Goo came to the rescue and cycled the memory stick with the photo on it to the shop and so a happy ending. Otherwise, we would have had to present Emma with an I.O.U. on her 21st, which would have sucked.

Foodwise, we had a feast! There was shepherd's pie (George), miso katsu (Olivier), gyozas (Jay), carbonara (Sven), quiche (Emmanuelle), tortillas (Kevin), and then everybody else brought drinks and snacks. My contribution? I made a chicken pie from scratch, pastry and everything. Check me out! I have never attempted to make puff pastry before so it was a steep learning curve, especially because we didnt have the right utensils so I had to roll the pastry with a wine bottle. Plus, its been a while since I've made a chicken pie and usually then, Giles would be standing by stopping me from burning the food. Hmmm, I miss having a handy kitchen helper about. I burnt the pastry a little- well actually I left Sven and Jay in charge of it for a little while and they let my pie burn! We scrapped off the offending charred bits and it still looked good.

To top it off, George made a cake, and decorated it fresh strawberries and cream. We were all pretty merry and well fed, it was a really lovely meal.