It is becoming painfully obvious that Mike and I need a digital camera to call our own. At pretty much every Tribe gathering, at least two or three people bust one out, and we all pose goodnaturedly, and borrow cameras for the inevitable round of arm's-length shots -- but then everyone who doesn't own a camera has to wait for pictures to be chosen, resized, cropped, de-red-eyed, and uploaded. That is not to say that I am not tremendously grateful for everyone else's efforts on the group's behalf, but *I* want to be the person who is cropping and choosing, to better facilitate getting pictures on my own little site up in a more timely fashion.
Case in point: if I had a digital camera, you would not be reading me complain. Instead, you would be looking at pictures of saffron rice, studded with pine nuts, golden raisins, and steeped in coconut milk. You would be looking at pictures of baklava sticky with honey, cinnamon, pistachios, cashews, and walnuts. You would be looking at pictures of vibrantly red (some might say slut-red) raspberries, floating in a palely pink Chardonnay jelly, and topped with a floater of heavy cream. You would be looking at pictures of a dense, savory cheesecake, rich with pieces of artichoke and crab meat, swirled through with a creamy goat cheese. You would be looking at pictures of figs, split and stuffed with a mixture of mascarpone cheese, rosemary honey, and a thickly sweet reduced balsamic vinegar, wrapped in a sheet of prosciutto and broiled just until the edges begin to char.
And if you think you are hungry just reading the words -- well, imagine what photos might have done.
To the Fall of the Empire Partygoers: you rock my face. Togas abounded, Centurion outfits were donned, and costumes representing various fallen Empires were worn with pride. We downed not only a jeroboam of Riesling, we polished off a bottle of madeira and eight bottles of red wine. We dined using brass and rosewood flatware from Siam, and we drank from silver goblets. We laughed, we danced, and we sang, and as always, we did it in high style.
Now, if only I had a camera to prove it.