Lola's Table: Real Food for Real Families

Lola’s Table is now over at Urban Bliss Life!

Well, friends, the time has come: I’m moving my blog over to join the collective forces at Urban Bliss Life. I am so very excited about this new adventure, and hope you’ll join me over there! In addition to editing the site, I will be sharing my love of food in the SAVOR section; writing about motherhood in the Maternity to Madness stories over in the STORIES section; writing about design and products in the STYLE section; and writing about social media and communication strategy in the STRATEGY section. Please be sure to sign up for the Urban Bliss Life RSS feed either via your reader or you can also sign up to get the feed via email. Then join us on Facebook too!

I’ll be keeping this separate site up for a while, but you can access all of my archives also on the new Urban Bliss Life site as well.

Thanks for reading! I hope you’ll continue to join me over at Urban Bliss Life!

Lunch

Comments:{0}

EVO Conference Food Blogging & Cooking Demo Workshop

The last weekend of June I had the privilege of attending the EVO Conference: The Evolution of Women in Social Media. After speaking in the Small Business Success session, I had the rest of the weekend to enjoy the beautiful Canyons Resort, Park City, and take some wonderful workshops. Of course, I took the food workshop! We first separated into groups for three cooking demonstrations. I chose the salad & salmon demo. Check out these gorgeous creations:

{Evo conference food workshop: salmon & noodle rolls}

Evo conference: food, fruit walnut salad

{Evo conference food workshop: fruit & nut salad}

The chef asked for folks to jump in and either help or try our hand at various techniques, and I jumped in at the chance to make a noodle roll. Apparently, there’s a reason I don’t make these at home: I’m not very good at it. Pastries? No problem. Noodle rolls? Well… here’s a pic of my second attempt (and you can see the failed first attempt next to my right arm):

Evo conference: food workshop, Marlynn & Noodle Rolls

{Evo conference food workshop: attempting noodle rolls}

After the demo, we listed to the incredibly talented Helene Dujardin of Tartelette share her food photography tips. Helene also worked on food styling her first cookbook which is due out this fall. I can’t wait to see the finished product, and I know it will be just as gorgeous as her blog and all of the magazine work she has done!

After Helene’s food photography session, we listened to Helen Jane, Jane Maynard and Stephanie Robinette speak about food blogging. They all had such a wealth of experience and knowledge to share, and I am deeply grateful I got the chance to meet them and learn from them.

What this workshop did was ignite a fire in me to attend more cooking demos, workshops and seminars. While food is not my livelihood, it is indeed a deep passion of mine. It fills my soul with great joy, and to be surrounded by others who feel the same sense of love toward food & cooking is just a fantastic feeling. Thanks for another great experience, Evo Conference!

cooking, entertaining

Comments:{1}

DeMarle Cooking Party

I love entertaining. My friend Alisa is a DeMarle rep and since I l-o-v-e the Silpats, Rolpats, molds and measuring cups I have through DeMarle, AND I love to party, I thought I’d host a little cooking party.

We started with this scrumptious appetizer:

{Brie with Balsamic Strawberry Almond Topping}

And ended on this incredibly sweet ice cream concoction:

{Coffee Oreo Ice Cream Pie with Chocolate Ganache + Caramel Sauce}

And in between we did a lot of fun “work”…

{Emma Easley Darden stirs the caramel sauce}

And we had a whole lot of laughs…

{Angela Russell, Emma Darden, Alisa Gaylord, Lina Jayme, Mary Rarick}

We also made sausage wontons and spinach dip tartlets. Everything was so delicious and so easy!

Cooking parties are so much fun and such a great way to spend time with good girlfriends. I can’t wait to host another kind of cooking party soon! If you’ve got ideas for different kinds of cooking parties, I’d love to hear them!

entertaining

Comments:{4}

Memorial Day Weekend: Perfect pairing of local wines & farm fresh fun

We are so fortunate to live close to, what I believe, are some of the best wineries in the world. The gorgeous rolling hills of the Willamette and Yamhill Valleys in Oregon are peppered with vines for luscious, world-recognized pinot noirs, pinot gris, chardonnays, and numerous other varieties. For many vineyards, Memorial Day weekend is one of the busiest weekends of the year. Instead of heading to one of the dozens of nearby vineyards this year, my family decided to instead stop by a wine tasting by Provincial Vineyards at one of our favorite family-friendly farm & garden stops, Smith Berry Barn in Hillsboro, Oregon.

Smith Berry Barn, Hillsboro, Oregon

We enjoyed the 2009 Pinot Gris and the 2008 Pinot Noir by local Provincial Vineyards. Owner Neil Frederickson was pouring, which is one of the things I truly love about either visiting the vineyards or attending Memorial Day events: the people behind the wine are usually around so you not only get to taste their wines but also see their passion for viticulture and learn more about who they are and what they do. Provincial Vineyards produces only 600 bottles of the Pinot Noir and only 50 cases of their Pinot Gris. This weekend, you can stop by Smith Berry Barn and pick up these delicious boutique wines at just $19 per bottle for the Pinot Noir (normally $24) and just $13 for the Pinot Gris (I believe it runs normally around $16). What a deal!

Provincial Vineyards Pinot Gris & Pinot Noir

The wines were paired with some wonderful Italian cheeses, but we were really excited to taste some of the first strawberries to be released this season, topped with a dark chocolate sauce sold at Smith Berry Barns. If you’ve never had Oregon strawberries, you really have no idea how amazing strawberries can be. Seriously. Many local u-pick strawberry fields open next week!

Lola's Table: Smith Berry Barn strawberries

The first strawberries of the season!

They also had some meatballs made with Rub with Love ancho & molasses barbecue sauce. Tasty!

Lola's Table: meatballs with chile sauce

tasty meatballs with ancho & molasses bbq sauce

What’s fun about Smith Berry Barn is that there are also chicken coops and the kids can feed the goats.

my son's favorite "striped chicken!" in the Smith Berry Barn chicken coop

kids can feed the goats

There’s also a country chic store where you can pick up artisan soaps, home & kitchen accessories and decorations, and more. I bought my favorite apron here last year!