A Week of Fine Dining at Lake Powell

We have spent two of the three

weeks in August at Lake Powell

and of all of our trips to Lake Powell,

this one was out of this world!

We asked our friends' daughters to

be the chefs on the boat.  The Harkness

twins have gone to Culinary Art school

and jumped at the chance, creating themed

menus for each day.

Unfortunately Grace broke her collar

bone so she wasn't able to come but her

older sister Hannah stepped in to 

assist Esther.

I am going to start you off with

Caribbean Night.

The girls posted menus for

lunch and dinners on the fridge

each day, each one cleverly themed.

Let me introduce you to our chefs

and wait staff.

For Caribbean Night I

asked everyone to dress as pirates

so our waitress for the evening

was Tinkerbell with her scabby chef Essy.

The girls set the table each night with

attention to the theme.

Tonight the table was set with a pirate flag

and pirate napkins

Even the houseboat was decked

out for the theme of the day.

Imagine how thrilled I was to 

see everyone dressed in their

pirate costumes!!

They win extra points for going the

extra mile!!!

This is a dinner group that

we belong to that is

called FIRM

(Friends In Retirement Mode

although no one is retired yet!)

Even the parrot came to dinner.

I applied these fun temporary

tattoos that I got at 

Partyland.

Dinner started with an appetizer of 

a deconstructed crab wonton.

Wow, the flavors were incredible!

Mahi mahi with a pineapple and

mango salsa with coconut rice

was the main dish and a

Pavlova with berries on a bed

of sweetened whipped cream

finished the meal.

This menacing pirate provided

the fun blinking goblets for everyone.

You can get these from

Flashing Blinky Lights.

They really added to the

festive table.

We also had American night.

Each evening meal began with what they

called their

Pre-Appetizer.

Each person received a Sees Chocolate for

their Pre-Appetizer.  Yum.

Marinated and grilled fresh

garden squash began the meal.

The star of this meal was the bacon-wrapped

filets with home made Bearnaise sauce.

It was accompanied by creamed corn

and cheesy potatoes.

Dessert for American Night 

were cake push pops with

red white and blue cake and

blue frosting.

Our waitress for American Night

was Stacy from Georgia.

(Hannah had gone the extra mile and

studied different accents on the internet

to play her roles.)

The girls set the table every night

choosing different plates and placemats.

Their service was incredible.

 Captain Kirk had shown up in

costume starting the week off 

with lots of fun.

 We had originally asked the girls

to make only dinner, but they got 

so excited about it that they also 

made us lunch.

Top left and going clockwise,

Steak and Blue Cheese Sliders,

Wedge Salad with Poached Egg,

Grilled Pizza with Fresh Mozzarella.

Gigi was our waitress for 

Italian Night.

It was everyone's favorite.

Chef Essy had prepared six homemade

pastas at home for this fabulous night.

After our pre-appetizer of a chocolate,

we had these fun

Caprese Salad Skewers.

We got the cute plates and dishes

from Partyland 

and Webstaurant for petite 

plastic dinnerware

(scroll down to find smaller packages).

This was the perfect menu to

try out these wonderful mini

dishes that we had used for my

daughter's wedding reception.

The first plate was three pastas,

Spinach Lasagna,

Goat Cheese Tortellini

and Butternut Squash Ravioli.

The next plate was three more

dishes - 

Buccatini Carbonara, Gnocchi

in a Pepper Sauce and Home Made Meatballs.

All of these recipes came from

Williams Sonoma Pasta cookbook.

Wow, how can you 

ever repeat a meal like this?

 Dessert was freshly made 

Mango Sorbet with

a Double Chocolate Brownie.

There was a little quiz that 

we were given each night that

went with the theme while

we waited for the girls to

plate the meals.  All of these

fun little extras made the week

out of this world.

We really enjoyed our

waitresses.  They were another huge

surprise and

we never got to see her before dinner

so that when she came upstairs

it was really fun.  

Oriental night was skewered tenderloin

with green onions on fried rice.

Love the happy face made with

the veggies!

A commercially prepared 

Oriental spongecake with fresh

cream and berries was our dessert.

It is hard to conceive 

their boundless energy 

and their skill of planning

and preparation.

 Our final night brought

Salome 

and Indian food.

The big hit were the potsticker

where the chefs made the 

dough by hand and rolled it out.

There is no comparison.

I don't think this table will ever

see such food or such service

ever again as Chef Essy is heading

off to college and Waitress Hannah

is finishing college.

We had to regale them with kisses

in gratitude for the most amazing

week at Lake Powell EVER!!

Blondie asked if I had done a post

on the kitchen on the boat,

I will have to do that in the 

future, but for the meantime

I am adding a picture of

the girls working in the kitchen.

Sources

Plates - Target

Flatware - Casablanca from Dillards

I will be posting with

Tablescapes Thursday