Every year about mid-June for the past ?? years (I haven’t been keeping count!), we’ve celebrated the graduation of another crop of grade 8 students at Rockway Mennonite Collegiate (where Murray teaches) with a little party for the teachers following the Friday night grad ceremony. The tradition continued again this year as staff gathered at our house for a little sipping and snacking to mark the progression of another batch of students into grade 9 – and the completion of another school year!

Many eons ago when I was a student, the only graduation one experienced occurred when you completed grade 12 or university. These days, depending where you live in Canada, you can graduate from Kindergarten, grade 6, grade 8 and grade 12. Then there’s college or university, post-grad studies……

Ah well! Graduations at a multitude of grade and education levels provide excuses for teachers to party too!

To keep the party prep for our annual soiree to a manageable level, I try to plan a fairly simple menu, sometimes using pre-made dips and spreads as a time saver. This year, the menu included artichoke and lentil dip with veggies, devilled eggs, mini red potatoes filled with potato salad, layered Mediterranean spread (tuna, tomatoes, olives, and chive and Italian seasoning-flavoured cream cheese), green beans and peanut sauce, flatbread wedges spread with roasted red pepper dip and cucumbers, peppercorn chicken pate with baguettes, bite-sized zucchini and mushroom frittatas, cheeses and crackers, Ontario strawberries (they’re finally in season – yay!!) and chocolate truffles.

I forgot to take a picture of the spread before we filled our plates. I did remember I owned a camera post-party, so here’s a little taste of what things looked like after the last guests had left. Yes, taking pre-party pics would have made more sense! Sadly, this will be as good as it gets for my visual reminder of this event!

I’ll post a couple recipes from the menu in the next day or so.

If only there were little post-entertaining kitchen fairies that could magically tidy the kitchen and put the leftovers away!