STL Day

On Tuesday we had Chicago Day; yesterday was STL Day (and what a day it was, with baseball-size hail and tornados not too far from us!)! 3/14 is a day to celebrate all things St. Louis, because the city’s area code is 314 (also the first area code we had when we moved to the Dogtown neighborhood of St. Louis over two decades ago). For dinner, we had some of St. Louis’ finest…Imo’s pizza from the freezer section (the best frozen replica of a restaurant pizza we’ve had!), toasted ravioli, and Fitz’s Cardinal Cream soda. And for dessert, I made another St. Louis classic, gooey butter cake:

We still have a whole slew of special days coming up, first next week, and then on through Easter, and even beyond…stay tuned!

The Farewell to Summer Feast

Tonight, we had our “Farewell to Summer” dinner, which was also a Beast Feast, because we wanted to celebrate the awesome job David Sandusky of Beast Craft BBQ did on Food Network’s BBQ Brawl this summer!

In keeping with the St. Louis theme, I made a gooey butter cake for dessert, only I overbaked it, rendering it not gooey. It still tasted good, though, so that was something.

The 2021-22 school year begins Monday morning!

An STL250 Tea Party

I know I’ve run pretty far afield of what constitutes afternoon tea, but I wanted to do something special for St. Louis’ 250th birthday. I decided to go with some famous St. Louis foods, and a lot of fleurs-de-lis to celebrate St. Louis’ French heritage. Our soundtrack for tea was also a nod to St. Louis: Chuck Berry’s The Great Twenty-Eight.

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The tea of choice for today was French Vanilla. It was the best I could do in tying it in to the theme somehow, just because it has the word “French” in the title. I did consider using the 1904 World’s Fair connection with iced tea, but it is November, after all!

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I made a Gooey Butter cake, which is one of St. Louis’ most well-known baked goods:

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And toasted ravioli, another St. Louis favorite:

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We also had provel cheese, a St. Louis anomaly that I actually kind of like, and Volpi Roltini, which is prosciutto wrapped around mozzarella, from the meat market on The Hill:

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I made finger Jell-O in the colors of the St. Louis city flag (red, yellow, and blue, although I ended up with a cool rainbow effect where the colors blended), and shaped like fleurs-de-lis:

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And our favorite chocolate chip scones, also shaped like fleurs-de-lis:

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We also had finger sandwiches, shaped like, you guessed it, fleurs-de-lis:

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This was a kind of challenging tea party, because the theme was so different, but it was also really fun finding another way to celebrate St. Louis’ birthday that’s also unique to our family!

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