For those who weren’t able to attend the event last Thursday at Casa de la Noche here in beautiful San Miguel de Allende, this WOW post will give you a taste of what you missed – and let you know we missed you.

This event, the brainchild of Barbara Poole, Casa de la Noche’s owner, was in celebration of my new “baby” book, Sweet Tarts for my Sweethearts: Stories and Recipes from a Culinary Career. As the mother of this newborn, I couldn’t have been happier or more thankful.

The outdoor space, Casa de la Noche’s lovely courtyard, reached the maximum allowable number of guests (28), and the kitchen staff served beverages and fresh-baked tasting-size portions of tarts at the end.

I read several short (true) stories from the book, including this Thanksgiving-themed piece, titled “Thanksgiving Offerings”:

“One Thanksgiving, as a guest at the home of my friend Delma Barron’s daughter in Taos, I was embraced by their annual tradition. Every year for many years Delma’s daughter Linda invited about two dozen friends and friends-of-friends to join in her and her husband’s favorite holiday celebration.

“They converted their large, sun-bathed living room into an immense dining room with long, festively decorated harvest tables. Each of the guests brought a dish to the feast. The dishes were then displayed on the kitchen’s enormous island as a buffet, and before anyone took a plate, the entire group circled the island with clasped hands and shared aloud in turn their reasons for being thankful.

“Except for Delma, everyone at this gathering had been a stranger to me when I arrived. Being an introvert, I find such groups difficult to enter. But just the act of holding hands and listening to everyone’s heartfelt thankfulness broke through the ice and isolation for me. The message my heart heard was: We all belong to the same family, the Family of Man(kind); we all have the same hungers; we’re all thankful to be alive and to be here.”

For that Taos Thanksgiving I brought three tarts (all of the recipes for which are in Sweet Tarts) – Lemon, Apple, and Cranberry-Walnut. So, for the tasting segment of the event, Casa de la Noche’s staff made mini versions of these same tarts from the book for the guests:

And, as at the Taos gathering, we went from person to person at this event, sharing our reasons to be thankful this Thanksgiving. One of the themes in these words of thanks was our thankfulness to be in this “safe harbor” of San Miguel during the COVID pandemic. We were thankful to be alive and to be here.

Then I signed books, “with love and best wishes” and a heart full of thanks.

~ ~ ~

Thanks especially to my friend and neighbor Kharin Gilbert, who took all of these photos at the event, as well as most of the photos – including the wonderful cover photo — for the book. Here is Kharin’s selfie:

For those in SMA who wish to purchase Sweet Tarts, it is now available at the front desk at Casa de la Noche (Organos 19), as well as at the Tesoros gift shop at the Biblioteca on Insurgentes. It will also be available soon at La Conexion on Aldama. And it is always available to all from Amazon.com (https://amzn.to/3l3zOmz) and Nighthawk Press (www.nighthawkpress.com).

Happy Thanksgiving to All!