Hey party people!
Yep, yep…it’s that special time of week…time kick back, relax, and drool over celebrate a delicious day of eats!
Happy What I Ate Wednesday!
As always, a big shout out goes to Jenn for putting on the biggest blog party out there! Be sure to head over to Peas & Crayons, show her a bit of love, and see what everyone else has been munching on this week!
So, there was a last-minute change of plans for this post. I had a compilation of mouth-watering pics from my meals throughout the last week all set and ready to go, BUT that all changed last night after:
I went to my very FIRST Service Award Banquet, a dinner celebrating employees as they hit milestones in their time of service. As of June of 2012, I’ve been with my hospital for FIVE years!
My invitation came in the mail a couple of weeks ago, thanking me for my service and inviting me (and a guest) to a dinner at our local country club which I had never visited before.
My mom makes a pretty hot plus one, no? 😉
The banquet hall was set up very nicely and held our congregation of nearly 200 rather well. Mom and I were fortunate enough to be seated at the table with the most personality in the room…we had good laughs all night long. And after explaining why I was taking a bazillion pictures of my dinner, and then using pictures of my
Red Velvet Protein Pancakes as bait, I think I may have even earned a new blog reader! 😀
Anywho, how about we get on to the good stuff, huh?
It all started with salad:
Mixed greens with cucumber, tomato, carrots, and onions. There were assorted dressings to choose from, but I opted to have the delicious Greek-inspired pasta salad be my topping…filled with clumps of tangy feta cheese, kalamata olives, peppers, and even broccoli, I swear this was one of the BEST pasta salads I’ve ever tasted!
For the main course, we were able to chose from either beef tips with peppers and onions or grilled lemon-pepper salmon:
Mom went with the salmon, which did have a nice flavor, but the beef was SO much better…tender, juicy, and FULL of flavor! Served alongside some buttery creamed potatoes, honey-glazed carrots, and peas with pearl onions, this dinner was the epitome of classic Southern cooking (basically, I was in HEAVEN!).
And for the record, the ONLY way to eat from a plate like this is to dance your fork around the plate, scooping up a little of everything for each and every bite!
And then there was dessert:
Mom went with the cheesecake with raspberry drizzle…
While I chose to go with the “mystery” dessert that turned out to a sort of
combo between crumb cake and bread pudding…it had a good flavor but I would definitely have preferred more of a pudding-like consistency.
After dinner, the awards ceremony started with a word from our city mayor and then we were all called up in our range of years…5, 10, 15…and even 45!!
Our token for the evening…a silver pendant that can be attached to our name badges…notice mine has the #5?
I’ll admit that I almost didn’t RSVP to this dinner. It was scheduled just before my shift began and honestly, I just envisioned a night of boring chatter and food catered by our ill-reputed cafeteria. I am SO glad that I was wrong! In this world, it’s not often you get a chance to have your time/effort recognized and I feel grateful to hold a position were the management does actually try to show their level of appreciation in some form or another.
What’s the longest time you’ve ever spent at one job?
Do you have to keep your food separate on the plate or are you a mixer-upper like me?
