Happy New Year! Say Hi to Your Mother for Me.

Ala Cuisine! Kylie and I kill time at HyVee waiting for the Manager to fix the register after my New Year's Party Purchases seem to break its resolve...

While the Howktown is a fairly happenin' place, the exact location of it is situated in the middle of... nowhere.  It is rare that I get out of town visitors that aren't related to me in some way. I tried the convincing, cajoling, bribery in the past to no avail...


Maybe it was because the last party I had I invited every friend I had and expected everyone to get along... One trip to the emergency room later and I was asking myself "what exactly where you thinking, Howk?" Most likely I was thinking my eclectic taste is friends was shared by all and they would find just being in Howktown enough to get past their differences... besides I'd made them a 5 course meal all by myself! That was 5 years ago... Cest la Vie!
That is until this year! The guest list was pared down to just the college girlfriends and included pizza and drinks and watching you tube videos of Mark Wahlberg Talking to Animals. Now Jo Jo Potato and N.O.H. had been down since then, but this was the first time that the 4 of us had been together in Howktown... ever! I was a bit excited.

The Czarina gave me the Pioneer Woman cookbook for Christmas and we decided to try out her Potato Leek Pizza, as well as two others of our own making. All yummy. The pizza dough recipe was fantastic. Easy to make, easy to use, and tasted great.  I haven't made enough of the recipes yet to give this book a thorough review, but the two I've tried have been pretty freakin' awesome.

Cute and good with eggs!

I had homemade bloody Marys waiting for my friends when they arrived.  I figured I'd have to spoil them to remind them how awesome Howktown really is (it is actually known as The Fun House by a certain 8 year old visitor).  After the pizza, and the Marys, we headed down stairs. I had intended to get them all dancin' but we ended up talking and mixing drinks.  We ended up talking and laughing (and sometimes crying) all night; the best part of a Pajama Party anyway!

That's homemade bread, sisters.

The next day, my personal chef made us all omelets, while I made French Press style coffee for everyone. Mostly because Deb thought it was weird that her coworker had a french press in his cube. ;)

Now I'm going to talk to a goat. Hey Goat, nice beard.

Happy New Year from the Queen of Howktown and her Personal Chef and Consort.