Ain't no party like a teacher party because a teacher party don't stop. Well, until about 10. Then it stops.

I'm sorry.

I've been totally remiss at getting these posts up in any semblance of timeliness. In case you're confused — I've been pulling the wool over your eyes and setting the date to the post to the day when the meal was cooked, but, in case you haven't noticed, I've been updating in fits and spurts.

The problem with this is that they tend to start getting boring by the third post I've made in a row. (I know, I know, even I can get boring.) I'm not promising you anything though. To be completely honest I'm usually loaded by the time we finish dinner so it's better than just seeing me non-coherently swear for about three paragraphs about how much rice rules.

Like right now. It's not August 29th or even August 30th. It's September 7th and I'm at home watching the MTV Video Music Awards pre-show (don't ask — it's for work) and trying to write about that delicious spread you see up there and then get through what I made for dinner tonight.

Why, may you ask, was there that much food set up in such an attractive manner? Well, Julie had a party for her staff on their first Friday back at school. Since it was my last summer Friday, I knocked off around noon and then spent the entire afternoon cooking ad cleaning for her teachers. Well, that's a lie. I also had to go shopping to buy most of these things at the farmers market. And honestly I didn't cook much — aside from wrapping the peaches with prosciutto I had to make that delicious tart.

This tart is a little bit like that girl that your friends want you to hook up with sight unseen but instead of describing what she looks like they keep saying "she's got a great personality;" a little unsightly but awesome once you put it in your mouth. Wait. No. Nothing like that girl.

The tart was pretty easy to make; it appeared in an issue of Gourmet a while back, consisting of a very light and tender dough made with eggs and olive oil and then covered with mustard, caramelized onions, toasted fennel seed and Parmesan. Since it's the height of tomato season I also put some tomatoes on top (salted, rinsed and patted with towels to reduce the moisture). The only real pain in the ass step was the caramelizing the onions -- it's about 3 lbs of onions cooked over a very low flame for almost an hour to get them totally sweet and reduced. It's worth the effort, but you gotta watch it like a hawk to keep them from sticking to the bottom.

Amazingly enough, by the way, the entire spread was consumed in about an hour all whilst watching her coworkers thrash about on Rock Band like a man covered in baby oil trying to get out of a deep tub.