Tablescape Thursday: Canine Seder

Our dad Scott is Jewish, and our dad Artie is Christian, but that doesn't mean that we can't be worldly and culturally sensitive puppies. We celebrate all major Jewish and Christian holidays, and though that might be confusing for some pups, we think it's pretty cool. So tonight, on the first night of Passover, we set the table for a traditional Seder.

A Passover Seder is a Jewish feast, celebrating the Exodus from Egypt, and thus the Jewish freedom from slavery and imprisonment. The centerpiece to every Seder table is the Seder Plate
which holds six symbolic foods: Maror (in this raddishes), Charoset, Karpas, Z'roa, and Beitzah (a hard boiled egg). These foods serve as reminders of sacrifice, tears and bitter, harsh treatment Jews endured while enslaved in Egypt.

During the meal, the entire table reads from the Haggadah which is used to set the order of the passover prayers and courses. (There are several - including Matzoh, lots and lots of Matzoh!) Oooo, and dad says wine, too! Drunk leaning to the left! And this time because the book says ... yeah, right!

Our dad Artie is very culturally sensitive. He's really interested in new things, and was particularly interested in the Seder. We think it had to do with the tablescaping. He ran out and bought blue plates! Now - this isn't traditionally what you'd do for a Seder, but dad thought that it would be a nice touch, and a simple tribute to the blue you see in the Flag of Israel.

We couldn't find blue flowers though, but we came super close with the Iris. You'll see a small bowl at the top right of each plate. D and I set these there for the salt water each person at the table dips their Karpas (in this case Parsley) into, at the beginning of the meal.

And even though there were only 5 people at the table, we set a place for Elijah, the prophet who visits every Jewish family at Passover. His wine glass was made by Noah - our fun little boy who likes to play!

Dad (Scott) made a great smelling meal. We never get to taste it. But we heard them yumming and ooooing, and "Oh you have to make that again Scott!" from the dining room:

Matzoh Ball Soup, and Salad opened the meal - of course with lots of dry matzoh to go around. Then he brought out the first ah! course: the lamb, cooked in and rested on a plate of delicious looking couscous and roasted vegetables. Then he brought out a tray of grilled to perfection asparagus, and there were little roasted red peppers and garlic on them too. Dad likes to cook them in a vinaigrette that has a bacon balsamic flavoring. Sure smells delicious! Then came the roast, a semi-boneless beef roast that was cooked medium rare and had the most gorgeous pink center - if only we'd been able to hold the camera steady enough to take a picture! Add in sweet potatoes, an onion souffle, and no one went home hungry.

We hope you enjoyed our first table scape. Dad says if the comments on this are good enough - he might let us do the Easter table scape too! So come on, let us know what you think! And don't forget to come back tomorrow! We've got Mister from Gollum's here to give a scathing tell-all, and a yuppy puppy giveaway you won't want to miss!

Canine Transformations: Part 2

When last we left you humans out there in blogland, we had shown you our new yuppy puppy look we added to the living room. If you missed it, check it out here! Oh, and in case you're new this week, go here to find out who we are! We also gave you a taste of our new and improved sunroom arrangement. Well, put down whatever you're doing ... this is one of our best transformations yet!

In order to get a good idea of how much this room has changed, you'll have to understand what it looked like before. Here's just one of the many pictures our Dad showed you on the linked post:

Forgive the image folks, this was before Dad got his nifty new camera! Anyway - you see here that the ottoman we now have in the living room, and two of the leather chairs, along with some mixed accessories and curtains just perfect for fall gave the room a real weighty feel. We wanted to lighten it up a bit, and since Dad was letting us have our way ...

We really took advantage, but in a totally great way, don't you think? We had Dad buy some new curtains, in a beautiful cream sail cloth ... perfect match to those pillows and throw he worked so hard on. Then we covered the side table with a burlap tablecloth and moved in Dad's favorite seagrass wingback chair.


Before, the room felt a little bare in the corner with just an old beer box for magazine storage. Dad was such a great designer - he just needed a little bite on the butt to get going. Once we convinced him ...

We think it made the perfect accent to the new and fresh spring room. We left the ladder cause Dad got that for free from a friend, along with the cart table and a French Tolix stool. The little lady that was made into a lamp ... no fear, no harm was done ... has a great burlap shade too. Mixing and matching textures - very yuppy puppy, don't you think?

Here's another view of the chair. Apparently it was pretty expensive - so Dad kept it upstairs out of our reach. Oh and, check out our head on the floor! Come back on Friday when we talk to Mister from Gollum's and he shares his story about the head in his living room!

Our Dad's love to travel, and so do we. So we thought the perfect accessory was this old Atlas from a set of 1964 World Book Encyclopedias. We love the way the colors of the book tie the oranges and blues from the striped pillows in, and of course our orange tulips.

So as we dim the lights and back our way out of this space, D and I are calling this job done, for now. We'd ultimately like to see Dad get that lamp he's been talking about for the space and move this one back up to the bedroom - oh, and of course - we'd like to have free roam! We PROMISE we won't hurt the chair! PROMISE!

Remember to check out our Tablescape Thursday post. Dad's are having a seder tomorrow. It's our first, and we're very excited! See you then!