ArcaMax

The Wedding

In my last installment, I relayed the story of how we met Allison and Robert; the bride and groom. They were married in our home in late May.

And now, for some more of the story.

Allison is a heavy-hitting event planner. She oversees the events for one of the most prestigious restaurant corporations in Chicago. So it was not so out of the ordinary for Allison to want to have her wedding someplace out of the ordinary. When you work in the business, having your wedding at a regular venue would seem too much like work.

Allison and Robert decided our home would be their out of the ordinary venue, and we were quite pleased to be a part of their big celebration.

You all pretty much know how much I love to entertain. I got started as a food writer because a magazine heard about this CEO who did 40 – 50 dinner parties a year. They were curious about that kind of behavior and came to interview me about all that partying. And then they asked me to start writing for their magazine and my involvement as a food writer was born.

So most times there is a party at my house I’m in charge of it all. I do the planning, the decorating, I plan the menu, I buy the food, I prepare the food and I’m in charge the evening of the event. I’m the one in the kitchen getting the food out for service.

You can imagine how different it was for me to host this wedding. I didn’t have to do much of anything.

Because Allison is in the business, she has a ton of connections and she involved her favorite vendors in her wedding preparation.

One day the florist came to check the place out and plan the flowers. Two different event staging companies were involved too. It’s not that they were doing this over-the-top wedding. No. Allison just wanted to convert our home into a classy wedding location while still keeping the intimate flavor a home offers. The event folks did use most of our furniture, but they also brought in additional seating options. And decorations. They hung some large, round balls in our garden to act like contemporary chandeliers. They were really cool. Lots of candles and floral displays and voila; wedding.

Allison chose to have the Italian restaurant in her company group to handle the reception food. Her favorite chef David came to scope the place out and planned a menu along with Allison. They started with a raw bar, several appetizers and entrée items as well as an assortment of desserts. The buffet in the dining room was covered in food. No one went home hungry, that’s for sure. The counter along the garden wall was covered in sweets. The bar was set up outside in the garden and two bartenders were kept busy all night long. A pianist played during cocktail hour and then a DJ kicked in the dancing music.

Three chefs worked in a line in my kitchen. It looked very much like a professional kitchen operation you’d see in a restaurant. My kitchen is long and narrow and open on one end, so you could watch them work if you were so inclined. Many people stopped by to marvel.

I circulated during the evening, answered question of the staff and greeted guests. I had plenty to do, but overall I had nothing to do. It was surreal for me not to have aching feet. I just got to watch the orchestration happen around me. It was an out of the ordinary event for me too.

All of the guests were smiling as they left. Allison and Robert did this brilliant thing where they had buses come and take the guests away to their hotels, so everyone pretty much left at the same time. No stragglers we had to cajole into leaving. It went as smooth as silk, right up to the close. I could not have asked for more.

Chocolate Cupcakes

These cupcakes are courtesy of Ashley Peck. Ashley is a Plan Z dieter and a professional pastry chef. She has done an amazing job of coming up with these cupcakes. They taste just as good as regular cupcakes but they contain just 12 grams of carbs each. The average cupcake will come in at 29 grams of carbs or more. Thank you Ashley! You can find Ashley on facebook. Facebook.sunflowersweets.org.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Ingredients:

8 oz of high quality chocolate, 70 percent cacao. Dice into small bits
1/2 cup of virgin coconut oil
6 eggs
1 tsp of vanilla
1/4 tsp of grated sea salt
1/4 cup of high quality Unsweetened cocoa powder
2 Tbl of coconut flour
1/2 tsp of baking soda

In a small sauce pan melt your coconut oil on medium heat. When it’s clear and hot remove from heat and add the chocolate bits. Stir until they are fully melted. Set aside to cool down.

In a medium bowl, beat the eggs with the vanilla and sea salt. This will take a minute or two to get them nice and frothy.

Now, for the tricky part. Take just a bit of the cooled chocolate mixture and blend it into the eggs. If the chocolate is too hot or you put in too much too fast you risk cooking your egg mixture. So be careful and take your time. Once the first bit is blended in you can begin to slowly drizzle the rest of the chocolate mixture into the egg mixture and continue blending until you have it all mixed in.

Add the coconut flour and the cocoa powder. Mix again.

Add the baking soda and make sure that’s mixed in. Now let the batter sit for five minutes.

Grease your muffin tins or put in paper muffin cups.

Pour the batter up to three-fourths of the way up to the top. (I got 11 cupcakes when I made my batch).

Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. No fair peeking. These bake similarly to an angel food cake so you don’t want to be banging the oven door. The finished cupcakes will be rounded and beautiful.

You can frost them with a simple, light smear of French ganache or even eat them with no frosting. They are delightful.

Enjoy!
Cheers,
Zola