Pampered Chef

A couple of weekends ago I was invited to a Pampered Chef party and intrigued, I went along to find out more. 

Pampered Chef is a bit like Tupperware or Gonis but with kitchenware for cooking and baking.  It originated in the USA and is rapidly growing here in Germany.

The rep came to my neighbours house and baked a loaf of bread which was then eaten with some dips, and made a kind of pizza.  Unfortunately I couldn't eat the bread or pizza as they contained wheat but I did bring some spelt bread and tried the dips.  

The rep explains all the products throughout and then points out some special offers and we looked through the catalogues.  Unfortunately many of the products were out of my price range and I'm not really a baker.  Nico does most of the cooking and baking and has every utensil imaginable.

I did order some fun shapers for pancakes and eggs to do with the kids at some point and a roller which I hope will work well with wheat free dough.

I enjoyed the evening and it was nice to see the neighbours socially but I won't be delving much further into Pampered Chef.

Clothes Party

As I mentioned, we were at a kids clothes party at the weekend. A friend of a friend sews children's clothes and sells them in a shop in Bremen as well as online. She also offers these parties on weekends and evenings.

This was the second one I have been to. At the first I bought a top and trousers for Isabella. This time I got her a hooded jacket and skirt, and Joshua trousers, slippers and a hat, all for 48 Euros.

Now I am planning my own party for November. I'm going to invite all the mums I know from different groups and hope to get a few of them together.

It's nice to feel like we're really putting roots down and building up contacts through the children.

First Birthdays

At the weekend we went to a friend's baby's first birthday party. It was really nice. First of all, they are English so it was a mixed party and it was niceto meet new people and mix English and German.

Secondly it was nice to remember all those childhood traditions - birthday cake with candles and singing, buffet food, kiddies presents, party dresses and special photos.

It's also always good to see the little ones together. Isabella is gathering baby friends fast and I love to see her mix with other tots. She's usually entranced.

I can't wait to plan Isabella's 1st birthday!

Baby clothes party

Last night I visited a colleague for the baby clothes version of a tupperware party. A friend of hers sews baby clothes in a range of sizes. The quality was very good and I was lucky that I only took a limited amount of cash as I could have gone really crazy.

I picked up two pairs of trousers - one for now and one for next year and a t-shirt for summer. Each guest also received a keyring gift. 

The evening inspired me to want to sew for Isabella again. 

One of the other highlights of the evening was chatting with the other mums - swapping tips and stories and hearing about what fun we have to come!

Tupperware Time

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On Saturday I visited my first ever Tupperware party.  It was great fun, although I have to admit, a lot of that came from the great company and the chance to practise my Spanish, German and English all in one go rather than from the Tupperware itself.

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I did place an order and was really excited when I found the product in the catalogue - it was an empanada maker.  Since living in Spain and falling in love with tapas, I've always wanted to make these and they have been on our gluten free to do list for a while so come February, we will be able to get going!

The down side of the evening was how expensive the products generally are.  Having seen parts of the Food Inspectors on you tube, I was especially inspired to clean up my act and get organized in the kitchen but I just can't afford to do it the Tupperware way.  Maybe when I win the lottery...

Raclette

We've been planning our New Year's Eve party with our good friends Ed and Loreto for a couple of weeks now and one of Nico's ideas was to have a Raclette.  I had never heard of this before and had no idea what it was about.  It sounded a bit like a fondu in that small portions of food are heated at the table.  Anyway, Nico went and bought one, Loreto is totally excited about the idea, having tried it for the first time with some German friends this year, and we experimented with it on Saturday night.

It was brilliant!  It's better than fondu.  As you can see in the photos, we put on a DVD and settled down to some serious Raclette business.  There are two parts to the process:

First of all, you can grill things on top of the Raclette.  We did this with potatoes, peperoni and bacon.

Then you can also fill little individual pans and grill them underneath.  We did this with peperoni and veg and covered them with cheese - delicious.  We could also do desserts with this idea - bananas with honey anybody?

Even more excited about New Year's Eve now!  Can't wait to try it again with some new ideas.