Its Friday and its Fabulous!

Its Friday and its fabulous here at the NEW Providence Design Showroom! We are working hard to get everything ready for our party next week. Hope to see you there

Happy Friday!

Garden Club Fun...

We were recently asked to present the program for the Little Rock Pleasant Valley Garden Club luncheon that was hosted by good friends of ours.  

Cooler temps outside had us all thinking ahead to the holidays and entertaining.  We set the dining room table for a Fall or Thanksgiving dinner...and then did a live change out to Christmas.  It was a lot of fun...

Our challenge was finding floral and pumpkins and such the first of September...We were about a week early with this event.  But we persevered and used some artificial that we would not normally use to make our points and the demonstration was very well received.

For the Fall table we first selected the china and crystal to determine the direction we wanted to go with the floral and other accents.  

We used beautiful Spode Woodlands china, organic woven placemats with cream colored chargers, sterling silver flatware, and silver goblets paired with etched wine glasses and extra tall champagne flutes. 

We decided to use different green textures with white pumpkins and mums rather than the traditional oranges and browns.  We really wanted to add lots of green and white floral cabbages with fresh white and green pumpkins...but as I said we were about a week too early.  

The base of our arrangement was fresh cryptomeria from my yard.  Its a beautiful evergreen and we were able to use it for both our Fall and Christmas tablescapes...

We layered in lots of different succulents and fresh mums in extra tall pewter urns.  The tall arrangement was full of drama but you can still see around it for great table conversation during dinner...

With all of the guests gathered around we quickly removed the mums, pumpkins, succulents, and all tableware and started re-setting for Christmas.  The fresh green cryptomeria remainder for our base...

We chose jewel toned Versace china, gold beaded mats with metallic chargers, gold flatware, different colors of cut crystal,the same champagne flutes because we loved the height, gold damask napkins with rings...

We quickly tossed the mums from the urns and added fresh cryptomeria, fresh magnolia leaves,eucalyptus, paper whites, ornaments and crowns...

We added gold ornaments, fresh green pears and magnolia , and paper whites to the arrangement on the table as well.  One of a kind vintage stockings placed on each plate for party favors...

Preparing for this presentation has us all so ready to start making plans for our own upcoming entertaining...From Fall to Christmas...Tis the Season!

It's your turn.  Let's talk!

Just For Fun...

Happy Saturday!

Last week my friend Alexis and I tried out Piro, a new pizza place in SOMA. This week we ate at a place called South On Main, that happens to be next door to Piro. South On Main is a unique experience as it is a great restaurant, as well as performance venue, featuring the best of southern cuisine and culture. Wednesday night, when we went, there was a jazz band performing.  Our table was close to the band, so we started with wine and appetizers while listening to the music. 

Unfortantly after I snapped a photo of the wine and the really pretty chandeliers above the host stand, my phone decided to quit working. 

I did however gather some photos online of menu items, and will do my best to describe our meal haha. 

We started with the skillet break appetizer. It is a soft bread, similar to pita that is cooked in a cast iron skillet, hence the name. Its served with different dips, spreads, or toppings, and the night we were there, it was a delicious smoked trout spread. Our waitress brought us a second appetizer on the house, since it was our first time dining there... thanks again! She picked her favorite, the trotters, made from pork and a cornbread served over brown beans. So yummy!

Skillet Bread - South on Main

For our main course, my friend ordered the pasta, and I the fish.

The pasta was wonderful with butternut squash, brussel sprouts, and sage. My striped bass was delicious with the fennel salad and clams. 

For desert we had the cookies, which a is basically two homemade cookies with a scope of ice cream in between. The ice cream is from Loblolly, a local ice cream place. Below is the chocolate chip version, while the one we had was snicker-doodle cookies with carrot cake ice cream in the middle. Awesome!

South on Main was a great place. The atmosphere with the live music combined with the delicious food was so awesome, especially on a Wednesday night! I would definitely go back. The music always changes, as well as different variations of menu items, so you could have a totally different experience every time.

Will you be trying South on Main?

Until next week, Zac.