I love giving dinner parties. Dreaming about dates and reasons to party (saints’ days, old feasting days like 12th Night, anniversaries of literary things, or dogs). Thinking over menu ideas, things we have to make, the artichoke dip everyone loves, the olive spread I’ve been wanting to try.
Matt and I gave a small 12th Night Party last weekend. Seven guests, and Matt went all-out cooking. Homemade tamales (with a sweet potato and black bean filling), a kind of Georgian (the country) filled cheese bread, quesadillas, dukkah (a crushed nut and spice mixture you can eat with bread), homemade salsa and hummus, fresh bread, olives, cheeses. I made white sangria, Matt made from-scratch lemonade. Homemade shortbread (yummiest cookie dough ever) and Mexican hot chocolate for dessert.
As usual, even in a small apartment, everyone ends up in the kitchen. Or near the kitchen, standing, eating the cheese bread and getting excited for fresh tamales. Oh, we ate. And drank and laughed. A few guests remarked that this was “pastoral,” and a good time for feeling cared for, before the semester began. That is, we work so hard, and those in the ministry spend lots of energy taking care of others– it’s nice to come to a party and be feted.
Back in the box of old photographs my cousin Larry and I looked through, we found that our Grandpa had saved the menu and program from a long-ago Navy base Christmas dinner. I love the lettering and the vaguely deco-reindeer.
I’m struck by how fancy everything has gotten, in this instant-everything global community. Chicken noodle soup. Fresh frozen peas. Coffee, tea, and milk.
Once in Chicago at Christmas, as an adult, my oldest childhood friend and I were taking the escalator at the Marshall Field’s on the Magnificent Mile. Even though we were adults, we were dazzled by the displays, the immensity of it all. We remarked to each other that we were glad we’d grown up in a very small town, where things were simple and often poor– and that now as adults we could still be dazzled.
I guess I’m also glad that I grew up in a time and place when the grocery store having bell peppers (which we, strangely, called “mangoes”) was exotic, as were Jell-O jigglers. I still get dazzled by the abundance of foods at my fingertips. Isn’t it crazy, in a way, that I can read any recipe on-line or in any cookbook, and feel certain that I could make it this very night? All ingredients are within my reach.
And yet, Sunday morning, for what did I have the most intense craving? Biscuits and gravy. We were up early and went to a great diner that never closes (the best kind) and I indulged. Not as good as my Grandma’s, or my Mom’s, or even mine… but still delicious. And not the kind of thing I’d make for a dinner party, but some of the best food I know.
