Remember last week when I said I had some projects to share with you all?  Well, here’s the first one.

My next edition of homespun is scheduled for Sunday, August 24 with a gathering and entertaining theme.  I’ve tweaked the format from the last go-round, making this one solely an afternoon event.  There are a total of three workshops that all participants will rotate through – Cheese plates with Nadjeeb Chouaf of Flora Artisanal Cheese (whom you might have heard about recently, as he just placed second in a national cheesemonger competition) Table Settings with Robyn Jackson of The Civility School and finally, Wine Tasting and Pairing with our host, Knights Gambit Vineyards.  I’m quite excited about this line up – given our usual dinner this time of year is more than likely to be bread, cheese and wine, it’s clearly three topics that are near and dear to my heart (and stomach).

My friend Nancy assisted me in staging shots to help promote the event.  It was great fun pulling together our various collections of dishes, serving ware, linens and the like.  Of course wine was involved in both the strategy and execution sessions, to set the mood of course. This, the lining up of instructors, staging photos, working on the website was the easy portion. The real work of promoting and making this happen lie ahead of me in the coming weeks.  Which means getting back on social media (I’m looking at you, Twitter) and chatting this up with everyone I can, starting with all of you.  You’d think an afternoon in the country, with beautiful views of the Blue Ridge, learning about wine, cheese and other aspects of entertaining with charming instructors like Nadjeeb and Robyn would sell itself, but there is some work involved.  Thankfully, it’s fun work.