I've made it no secret in these pages that I'm kinda, sorta, borderline-mildly obsessed with the British royal family.
Windsor-watching has become a full-fledged hobby through the years. My home office is filling with royal family collectibles people give me as gifts -- books, photos, tea towels, ceramic dishes, calendars, mini teapot-shaped tchotchkes.And now, Pippa's book.Pippa Middleton's not royal; as the younger sister of Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, she's what they call "royal adjacent." For me, that's close enough.Her party planning book, Celebrate: A Year of Festivities for Families and Friends (Viking, $50), came out in October, and it didn't get much press. (Thanks to that whole nude-photo scandal her famous sister found herself in.)The press it did get, for the most part, was not kind. Critics made fun of the "simplistic" advice coming from a 20-something who works for her parents' party planning and supply business.And, well, let's just say she shouldn't change her name to Martha and put her face on measuring spoons just yet.Still, when I unwrapped Celebrate as a Christmas present in December, I knew it couldn't just go on the shelf next to Prince Charles' organic gardening book and Sarah Ferguson's self-help book.I paged through it and started to think. I'll never live in a palace and ride in chauffeured Bentleys like a real royal; but could I party at home like a royal-adjacent?Pippa's recipes, ideas and projects -- divided into celebrations by seasons -- promise to be accessible and affordable. (Yes, even though the book is 50 bucks.)I'm a fan of both of those things, and I'm a fan of Pippa.Hence (cue the trumpet fanfare), I'm launching a year-long series, Parties with Pippa. For each major holiday and festivity, I'll follow Pippa's advice for celebrating.Starting with ... a very Pippa Valentine.The planSince we've gotten to know her through the long lens of the paparazzi cameras, Pippa has been wooed by some the world's richest and most powerful bachelors. The young lady knows a thing or two, I suspect, about what does and doesn't make for a successfully romantic Valentine's dinner."Valentine's Day should be a chance to prioritize time with your loved ones without everyday distractions," she writes. "... A supper for two at home is a cozy way to celebrate and gives scope for individuality and romance on a day that is no longer synonymous with spontaneity."A dinner at home it will be. Just the two of us enjoying a relaxed meal, a bottle of wine and some soft music on a work night. Sounds downright palatial. If only there were servants involved ... Sigh.Pippa's suggested Valentine's menu is this: for starters, oysters or gravlax with a side of Irish soda bread with Parmesan. For the main course, beef Wellington. For dessert: raspberry soufflé or chocolate fondant. For later in the evening, chocolate truffles, Irish coffee or a rose petal martini.(Pippa, apparently, doesn't eat vegetables.)"... You won't want to spend the whole evening in the kitchen slaving away -- this is the time to prepare easy foods ahead of time, while keeping the ingredients luxurious and special," she says. "It might be things that you both love but don't get to eat that often. After all, the way to a lover's heart is through the stomach, so they say ..."My valentine, Mike, doesn't do seafood, so the way to his heart will not be through oysters or gravlax (smoked salmon). I'll make the bread, and take a stab at a beef Wellington and a chocolate fondant for dessert, I decide.He promises to help. (Even better than rich and powerful, I'd tell Pippa, is a man who's domestically inclined.)The prepOn a Tuesday night after work, I take my shopping the list to my neighborhood Albertson's. Mushrooms, shallots, puff pastry. Check, check, check.I'm buzzing along, up and down the aisles, until I get to the flour aisle. The soda bread recipe calls for whole wheat bread flour. I see nothing with all four of those words on the bag among the 36 -- 36! -- kinds of flour on the shelves.After about 7 minutes staring at different versions of pulverized white stuff, I choose something that sounds kind of right and scurry to the meat section. I need 14 ounces of beef tenderloin filet, which I also do not see."We're out," the butcher tells me. "You probably won't find it here in the middle of the week."Great. My dinner's on Thursday."You're making beef Wellington?" He seems surprised. I know, I look like someone who eats a lot of frozen dinners. "That's an expensive dish, but it's so good. Good luck."Albertson's doesn't carry pate, either. Or, apparently, high-quality cocoa, the kind that does not come in paper packets.We're racking up strikes against "accessible" and "affordable," here, Pip. Oh, well. Thank goodness for Central Market, where the next day we pick up these items and a few others I've forgotten.Total cost so far: about 90 bucks.The cookingI make the soda bread around midnight that night and, apparently, the smell of bread baking (who doesn't love that?) keeps my valentine from getting a good night's sleep. Already, he doesn't like the bread.Thursday night arrives, so I kick off my shoes after work and start the Wellington around 7 p.m., sauteing the mushrooms then adding them to crumbled pate -- an indulgent ingredient I've never used and am not even sure I'm going to like. I rinse off the almost $30 worth of bloody tenderloin ( You're supposed to wash the blood off, right? It is blood, right?), wrap it in the puff pastry and slide it into the fridge next to the leftover Super Bowl Rotel-Velveeta cheese dip to chill for 30 minutes.Mike gets home with some tarragon I've forgotten (making for grocery trip No. 3), and I put him in charge of the "quick bearnaise sauce" for the meat. He informs me we don't have the necessary white wine vinegar. We have white balsamic -- is that the same? -- and about a dozen other kinds of fancy vinegars in the pantry.But Pippa wants us to use white wine vinegar. So I put him in charge of cooking the Wellington while I run to Kroger, making for grocery store trip No. 4. Turns out, I also still need cream for the dessert and that high-quality cocoa I couldn't find two days earlier.I run around Kroger, racing against the kitchen timer ticking down 30 minutes for the Wellington. As I take out my first item to scan at the self-serve line, I get a text."Can you pick up some tortilla chips? I want to eat that cheese dip."Really? I think. We're about to sit down to Pippa's fancy-pants meal, and you want to snack on cheese dip?Remembering that said fancy-pants meal could be a royal flop, I grab a bag of Tostitos and check out.It's now about 9:30 and I've spent another $25."Hey, babe, the kitchen's really smoky," Mike says as I walk in.Oh, god.I open the oven and a cloud of smoke overwhelms me. It's not the Wellington that's burning, but all the bits of caked-on gunk stuck to the bottom of the still-new oven. (We've not yet actually used the self-clean function, but we talk about how we should every time we bake something and nearly set off the smoke alarm.)I remove the Wellington three minutes early. Mike opens the tortilla chips and swipes them through cheese dip. I roll my eyes. ("Hey, I haven't eaten since lunch," he says.)The mealBy 10:20 p.m., we're finally sitting down to our royal-adjacent feast.And not just sitting down in front of the TV as usual. Pippa says that to make the dinner extra special, we should set up a dining space someplace out of the ordinary.I make Mike haul in the card table from the patio, clean it off and cover it with a tablecloth that hasn't seen the light of day since, well ... it's really dusty. We put it next to the fireplace, just like Pippa does in her photo, except we're out of logs so there'll be no roaring fire.Pippa says to adorn the table with a variety of candles. One project calls for gluing doilies to jars and placing tea lights inside. So I quickly empty the spare change collection out of a mason jar, cut a red doily to size, and -- because I'm not really sure if we have any glue in the house -- I Scotch-tape it on and place a tea light inside.Mike puts away the Tostitos, turns off the TV and flips on some relaxing classical music (Handel -- hey, he's British, too!).He opens the red wine I've also just remembered to pick up at Kroger -- a bottle cheekily and fittingly called "Middle Sister Rebel Red."I nervously slice into the Wellington. The meat is ... near-perfect. And it's savory and hot and delicious. I'm royally amused.Mike still doesn't like the bread, though dipping it in high-quality olive helps.We miss eating vegetables.Oh, and I haven't even started the chocolate fondant dessert. (I'd start that around midnight, and it would be breakfast the next morning. A rich, chocolately, gooey, calorie-rich treat in the morning.)But after all the preparation, expense, trips to the grocery store and mishaps we've had leading up to the meal, relaxing around a candlelit table by the fireplace with food we prepared together truly does make for a special night. A late night, an exhausting night, but a special one. Alas, there are dishes to be done.Now if only we could spend the rest of the week, just like Pippa and her family, on vacation in Mustique.Ah, to be royal-adjacent.Stephanie Allmon, 817-390-7852@FWST_YourLifeHave more to add? News tip? Tell us
