dinner with a friend

I had dinner last night for my good friend LODA to catch up and thought I would share it with you and what went into the evening. Here she is before the first course.
The day before I first planned the menu. The primary concern was that we were meeting straight from work so everything had to be ready to go and easy to make. Caprese salad to start because it's easy and delicious! I served this on these beautiful hand painted Limoge (by CFH) plates. I made pork loin and new pototoes in a red wine and stewed tomato sauce in my crock pot. Just threw it in in the morning and let it go! This was served on the underplate you see here: a white minton plate with a pale blue sidelight, gilt edging and a beautiful silver and gold raised monogram (for who knows who and who cares!) . For dessert I made the pear dessert I blogged about a few months ago on my white rosenthal sanssouci china. I served a little cordial of the port to go along with dessert and mint tea: always a great way to top off a meal!
Before bed I ironed the table cloth and set the table. I placed the salad plate here just for the photograph and to see how it would look - at dinner the napkin was on the plate before the first course. I used these very large european sized irish linen napkins with my monogram; a thoughtful Christmas gift last year! Thankfully the silver didn't need to be polished!
Here is dessert after our fun dinner of gossip and drinking!

Always a polite guest, she brought these beautiful sunflowers as a host(ess) gift! Thanks Laura!!

They're so pretty -the last taste of summer! Then the clean up and things get put away. The table flowers were just some simple pale pink carnations in a silver trumpet vase that hopefully will grace my table for the next week!