we be jellin'

to officially welcome our summer vacation, j+j and the developer hosted a chill bbq in their silverlake yard. seriously, cutest little house ever.

see?

oh, and if you're looking for a place on the eastside, the front house is for rent. really nice, big yard with roses and old trees, laid back neighbors (j+j, the developer) who will rarely be home during the school year (well except one j, he works from home, the lucky bastard), and just off sunset. /plug

alright, onto business. the grub. 'twas potluck-ish, but the lovely hosts provided most of it. (excuse all the saran wrap. we were outside, and i was just too relaxed/lazy to move it aside for the photos).

summery fruit, chips + corn and regular salsa

mmm...cheese.
steve buscemi (not really) and his fiancee brought
some brie, port salut, and dill (i think) havarti.

one of the canadians brought kalbi.
(on sale at galleria little tokyo market for $2/pound right now!)

gramps brought some pinot grigio,
which he watered down with san pellegrino.
told you he was old.
oh, and gramps's son (roommate), socal hippy boy, brought delicious tamales
from somewhere in highland park.

gramps + his wife also brought a steak in case.

delish.
midwestern hoosier boy manned the grill well.
j+j are from brooklyn and have never had a grill before.

laid-back berkeley girl (LBBG) made a refreshing cabbage + almond salad.

LBBG also mixed up some similarly refreshing
spiked cucumber mint lemonade in this cute retro jar.


the lemonade-cucumber-mint combo was so, so
summery.

mexican wedding cookies from whole foods.
they were eh.

told you architecture students like smoking.
instead of candy or nuts, there were these.

it turns out my favorite ginger beer
is very delicious with dark rum.

oh, and i brought j-e-l-l-O! two kinds, no less.

spiked! broken glass jello
(klassier, pretty jello shots)
broken up and crazy!
just like booze can do.

virgin rainbow jello
you can see which set was broken into first.
layered, pretty, calm, square.
booze-less.

some process photos, so you can see what's under the foil.

blurry, of course.
macro fail.

too many bubbles,
but i was not about to try and pop all those.

chopped up.
in pretty green cupcake liners.

pretty red + white cupcake liners for the rainbow slices.


taste the rainbow.
oh wait, that's skittles.


macro decides to start working again.
pretty colors.


jiggle jiggle.
(ignore my grossly funkily wrinkled hand).

to spike the broken glass jello, i used 3 oz. of jello packet, 1 cup of hot water, 1 cup of vodka per color. i forgot to spike the white, condensed milk gelatin, so there wasn't quite enough of it volume-wise compared to all the color. next time, i'd add a cup or so of vodka to that, too.

you can totally taste the deeelicious condensed milk even when gelled. oh yum. i could drink/eat that stuff straight outta the can.

oh, and i used justJENN's suggested jello flavors/combos. i was in the jello aisle, starting to contemplate all the flavor/color combos. i would have deliberated (much) further had i not had to pee so badly. dang ralphs with no bathroom. anyway, i digress.

everyone was so relaxed. finally. beautiful socal summer-y day (stay way may gray and june gloom!). lots of food + drink. fun company. what more do you need to kick off summer vacation?

ziggy says, "oh, hullo."
best. labradoodle. ever.


then runs off to cuddle with his mama.
his dad is steve buscemi (not really).

socal hippy boy took a two hour nap in the sun.
this is all we could see of him from our picnic table.

the end. of the beginning of summer! booya!