Happy Mother's Day Week - Tropical Delight

I have always loved Mother's Day!

I love honoring mothers and the great

sacrifices they make from pregnancy to

birth all the way to the ends of their lives.

I love the mothers that are in my life

and some of those are my dear friends.

We have gone through the mothering

process together from being mothers

of toddlers to teenagers to young marrieds.

We have discussed mothering over lunches,

crying together, rejoicing together and

growing together.

This week I celebrated with some of those

friends at a luncheon in one of their homes.

Mom set the table and requested a

Tropical Theme for the lunch.

These two darling identical twins, Esther and Grace, who 

I count as some of my dearest friend, 

are her daughters.  They have gone to 

Culinary Art school and are our guest

chefs for the day.  

They got online and created the menu

and you are going to be amazed what

these two 18 year old young women

created for us.

Mom, Annette, set the table with her new plates

and glasses that she just brought back

from a trip to Cabo.  She bought these

beautiful plates at our favorite store, Artesanos.

All of the ladies ended up buying a set

of these plates and packed their hard sided

carry on bags with their breakables.

I have a set of these plates down in Cabo.

I just love the bright yellow, green and blue

on the plates with the raised white design on 

the edges.

She also packed her bags with these two 

types of glasses.  Everything arrived home

unbroken!

I love how she set her napkin in the

glass with the gorgeous napkin ring.

What a perfect napkin ring for a tropical

tablescape.  

The capiz shell placemats are beautiful set on 

this aqua blue tablecloth.

Annette thinks like I do, that anything

can be carefully carried home as she

brought this gorgeous vase home from

Cabo another time.  It is the centerpiece

of the table.  She bought that at the glassblowing

factory.  It is surrounded by fun blown glass

objects that she found at Home Goods.

The centerpiece was surrounded by

beautiful tropical dishes filled with

goodies.  The twins' favorite was this 

starfish filled with Starburst candies -

they thought that was funny!

We started with a virgin tropical drink

filled with coconut and pineapple.

Then we moved on to 

crab filled wonton cups.  The girls made

their own wonton wrappers from scratch.

The crab filling was light and refreshing

with mango and a slight kick from red pepper

flakes.

Our next course was a tropical salad

overflowing with grilled pineapple, mango, and

macadamia nuts.  It was topped with a homemade

balsamic vinaigrette.

We then had a refreshing lemon and 

mint palate cleanser served in these

adorable little glasses.

Our main course for the lunch was

mahi mahi topped with a shallot and ginger

butter, served aside a pineapple and mango 

salsa and accented with basmatic coconut rice.

We ended with tropical Napoleons

topped with a white chocolate sauce.

Again, the twins made their own puff pastry

dough!

All through the meal we also nibbled

on the dishes of goodies that surrounded

the center of the table.  They included coconut

chocolates, lemon coated almonds, salted caramels,

cilantro lime cornuts, Starbursts, nuts and yogurt

covered blueberries -Roll Us Out The Door.

What a fun lunch with a wonderful bunch of

friends and mothers.

The chefettes outdid themselves!

Annette had brought home this pitcher

from Cabo on another visit and we all brought

home the stone molcajetes this trip.

Little did we know that these are not allowed

in your carry on bags!  We had 4 in one.  Luckily,

one member of our party was able to check in 

the bag, even though it was 10 pounds overweight!

I guess they think you could use these stone beauties

as weapons on the plane!

I hope you have a wonderful week

and a wonderful 

Mother's Day celebration.

I love that my friends have

learned to do creative tablescapes

and they love to see their tables

featured on my blog.

My hard drive died a week and a half ago

and we are still working on getting all

of my data transferred to a new one

and in the meantime my phone died.  

I love electronics when they work, but

when they don't, they are miserable.

I got up early to steal some time on

hubby's computer so that I could get this

post out.  Thanks dear for sharing!

I will be posting with 

Tablescapes Thursday