What better way to welcome my parents to our house than with the famous Sunday Suppers at Lucques triple pork burgers I’ve already blogged about at least once, maybe twice? After meeting my mom and dad for dinner in the town where my mom grew up, staying over, and walking around the town the next morning, we headed back to NH and my parents spent some time visiting one of my aunts. They meandered up to Hanover for dinner, and we were joined by my brother for a final pork burger run, this time accompanied by grilled asparagus and another stab at the oven fries I made last month. They worked better this time, though not as crusty–we put them skin-side down on the sheet and they didn’t stick as badly.

It was just weird and nice to have my parents in our little house, where I’ve hosted so many dinner parties over the course of our first year of marriage. Sadly it was really cold, so we couldn’t eat on the porch, but it was cozy inside:

Friday and Saturday nights we went out to dinner with loads of family members: Tom and Ben were both graduating (undergrad and grad school), so there were hoards of people around. We greatly enjoyed both dinners, first at our old standby The Perfect Pear, and at The Inn at Weathersfield, which was gorgeous. They set us up with a huge almost-square table (there were 13 of us) in a room between the pub and dining room, full of warm wood and with plenty of space but no other tables.

Sunday, after commencement we had invited people to come over for a casual barbecue. Of course it was damp and grey out, so we ended up with 30 or so people inside instead of out on the lawn, but thanks to a fantastic potato salad from my aunt Chris, tons of sausage and hot dogs, big bowls of beans and snap peas, etc., we kept everyone fed and happy. Once the last guests had taken off, it was just Ben, his mom and brother, me and my parents (Tom had another party to attend), and since it was Ben’s mom’s birthday we put together a little dinner for the 6 of us. My mom went at got chicken, salad greens, and tomatoes, and dinner was a B_______-family classic: Mom marinated the chicken breasts in some lemon juice and olive oil, dad grilled them to perfection, and we laid the slices over a simple salad. To top it off, we sliced up a loaf of ciabatta, oiled and grilled the slices, and rubbed them with garlic (that smelled amazing).

So simple there aren’t any recipes to share, but the perfect light dinner after snacking all afternoon.

That morning I had baked a gluten-free cake and made frosting for a birthday cake. I toasted coconut in a frying pan (I think a baking sheet would have been easier!) and stuck it to the frosting in an attempt at festivity, which sort of worked, though I think a two-layer cake would have been much prettier:

We sat on the porch for hours, drinking wine and laughing at the hysterical impressions B’s brother performs. It was the perfect wind-down to a very busy weekend.