Italian Wine & Dinner Party

 Dress: Chloe Dress in Evening Butterflies from Cherry Velvet via Gwynnie Bee (click link to get a free month & help me earn a free garment for a month)

Cardigan: Lane Bryant

Purple Tights: Avenue

Purple Boots: Doc Martens

Necklace & Bracelet: Vintage

Earring: etXarte

Photography: Kate & Me (iPhone)

Kate invited me to go with her to a Mt. Etna wine tasting & dinner party, & this is the outfit I wore. What a super fun dress to wear! Great colors & pattern. I loved the fit on this dress, it's a 3x...Cherry Velvet dresses run a tad big. And look at that cute loopy neckline! Also, it had pockets, which I'm not sure why Kate & others get soooo excited about. The only thing that bothered me about this dress is it is made of cotton & therefore wrinkles easily. 

I thought this dress looked cute with my shiny purple Docs & purple tights. Note to myself: I need a purple cardigan. 

There was wine everywhere! I was the only non-wine snob in attendance. So I am sure I did not fully appreciate the fabulous $400 bottle of champagne we finished the evening with. But. I like wine! And food. Also, it was a small (8-9?) gathering. But I am shy & quiet, especially with this fancy pants group. I still had fun though. And OH! the wine. The wine was lovely. 

And the food was amazing. It started with a charcuterie/sardine board & Sicilian seafood stew. Each course had two different glasses of wine poured for it. Then it was on to chickpea salad & a sugared ribbon zucchini salad. Both tasted like a summer picnic. 

My favorite course of the evening was this hand rolled, made on the spot, pasta with pancetta, lemon, rapini, & freshly grated parmesan. Why was it so good?! It was one of the best things I've ever tasted. 

For dessert there was pistachio ice cream, also made just seconds before being served, heavily dipped in cashews. 

This lovely woman who lived in Italy for a decade brought with her this sweet dessert bread/cake called Pandoro, which she said was popular in Italy from Christmas through Easter. It comes in a bag in which you dump a packet of powdered sugar into & shake vigorously until it is covered...or in this case, explodes.