Bachelorette Luncheon

One of my favorite cousins is getting married this Saturday (or, as I like to call it regardless of context, "getting Mauied") and the women of our family took his fiancée out to lunch at Barn Diva in Healdsberg, about an hour north of San Francisco, to welcome-wagon her to the family. What follows is, I hope, only a glimpse of great family outings to come!

What a damn good Bloody Mary...!

The women in my family are all so spunky and full of life. They have so many qualities I'd like to emulate as I get older! Lunches like this remind me of how sweet, intelligent, and warm my family members are and how blessed I am to learn from their experiences and share in their happiness. 

My mom and Aunt Toni

Aunt Nancy and MP

Goat-cheese balls with lavender-honey sauce

Aunt Nancy gives them the seal of approval

The restaurant was gorgeous - very earthy and nature-inspired, but with really elegant touches. Despite bearing the name Barn Diva, the actual restaurant was not at all like the bedazzled-and-leopard-print-cowboy-chic image that its moniker projects.

 

Fried asparagus appetizer

The bride-to-be on the left! Her friend, also a bride-to-be, on the right.

Vegetables over puff pastry

My impeccably cooked scallops

Quiche and what the two brides determined to be a very poor imitation of a Cuban sandwich...

Time for gifts!

And now time for dessert.

Chocolate cake with coconut ice cream and some kind of irrelevant garnish. 

The cake took...well, the cake.

Lemon tart with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce.

Family portrait! We should frame this one.

Welcome to the family, Britta! I promise I won't photograph every lunch we spend together. Alright, maybe I can't promise that.