Uprooted book discussion party!

On Sunday, my new book club met for the first time. We wanted to make it special since it was our first gathering, and so we had themed food and drinks. Here are some pictures, and the menu.

First photo: Iced herbal tea (green tea, lemongrass, spearmint), regular iced tea, apple tart (made by Marla!) Falcon pinwheels (the Falcon was another wizard in the book, these sandwiches were actually made of chicken salad, ha!) Haystack cookies (from a scene where the villagers are burning haystacks as signal fires), and white cheddar pimento cheese triangles (I couldn't find the herbed goat cheese I intended to serve). Not pictured are the "Smoky Dragon Bites" that I made. I only got one photo of those, and it was terrible, but they're made of small pieces of Kielbasa sausage, wrapped in bacon, drizzled with a brown sugar/white wine/stone ground mustard glaze, secured with toothpicks, and baked. I got the idea for them from the main character in Uprooted, Agnieszka, saying that the wizard Sarkan's name "tasted like smoke in her mouth". They were delicious, and very pretty, but I only got the one bad picture and then they were gone!

The second photo shows a small platter of fruit that our friend Martina brought--the strawberries on it came from her little backyard garden! She added store-bought blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, and apple slices as well as a creamy sweet dip. The punch I called "Agnieszka's Midsummer Punch", it was made with Polish vodka, frozen strawberry daiquiri concentrate, frozen lemonade concentrate, ginger ale, sparkling water, and lots of ice. It was garnished, as you can see, with lemon slices and fresh strawberries. It was absolutely delicious!

Next month we're reading The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, and we've already come up with some ideas for the discussion party--circus/fair food like corn dogs, popcorn, and cotton candy. Of course, I'll review the book and share pictures of the party afterwards!