The Dinner Party

Tomato and Corn Salad - Mexican Style

This is the story of a Saturday night dinner party.

The evening began a couple of days before, when Glen found a joint of ham on sale for a very good price.

His mouth watered at the thought of the ham bone in split pea soup.

Garden Salad

He decided that a dinner party was in order.  Others could eat the meat.  There would still be a ham bone left for what he loved the most:  split pea soup.

His invitation for dinner was extended across the property.

Wyona asked if she couldn't cook the ham at her house, since it was so cold there.

They had been warming up the house for a couple of days.

Entre Dish -- there never was such a plate!
I could hardly cover the design with food.

It had taken them that much time to find a way to close all of the windows, opened for air in the hot summer and now needing to be closed, since it does get chillly at night.

She wondered if she couldn't host the dinner at her house, since her last visitors had left her with goat cheese and other appetizers that were needing to be eaten.

A double bonus for her:  a heated house and food that wouldn't go to waste.

Between the Woods, the Bates and the Pillings, the rest of the meal was fleshed out.

 individual Coyote Dishes for side salads

Janet made a summer squash soup that had that je ne sais quoi taste -- it should have been jalapeños, she said, but she had to substitute another hot sauce, which was really working in that soup.

The toppings for the soup abound: sour cream, pistachios and I cannot remember what else, but enough to make the soup a whole meal.

Glen said he was reminded of a book he had been reading.

The aristocrats in another century were having a 13 course meal.

... candles burning in the night ...

When the soup was served the master and his guests had only a teaspoon full and then the rest was sent back to the kitchen so that people could pace themselves for all of the courses.

All this while others around them starved.

The rest of the soup in our kitchen was saved for another meal and another time.

When the ham is carved and the pototoes are out of the oven, there is no question as to which course I go to next: the hot one.

I like the French way of having the salad course after the entree.

In the case of the carving of the ham, the event brought about some discussion.

... the table is set when I arrive ...

In the extended Pilling house, we were told, Graham is learning how to do the carving.

The ritual of carving meat is almost a lost art.

On Saturday night, I noticed Glen went back to his own house and returned with a handful of carving tools -- a fork and a super sharp knife.

I was reminded that at my own home, I have a lovely carving fork with a bone handle.

I should make sure that my carving fork gets used again.

Moiya said she hates it when the potatoes about to be served are called funeral potatoes.

I have seen different names for those potatoes in recipe books -- Grannies Super Deluxe Potatoes or Cheesy Hash Browns.

... fresh garden salsa with a bite from the Woods ...

The recipe calls for cheese and sour cream and maybe mushroom soup and hash browns.

There are enough calories in a spoon full to count for a whole day's energy input.

I like to think of the dish as a way of serving comfort food at a funeral.

But Moiya is right -- the name funeral potatoes is a bit bleak.

We talked for a long time over dinner.

We began to eat at 6:30 pm and at 10:30 pm we were still surrounding the table.

... appetizer boats ...

I had just read an article about conversation between people, which said there is 300th of a millisecond between when one person stops talking and the next person begins.

I think this might have been true of the conversation at this dinner table.

Wyona and Greg had been to the Brew Pub recently.

I had suggested to her that she would have a better time having a dinner in the comfort of her own home.

She said that the Brew Pub had been so noisey, that it was about impossible to have a conversation.

a salad on a bed of seasoned brown rice
pistachios, carrots, baby tomatoes, pears top the dish

This was absolutely not true of our night together.

We had no waiter hoping to get out out so that there could be another sitting at our table.

We could hear each other's conversation.

... carving the ham ...

We could pace ourselves, resting between courses.

And the size of the tip would have broken the bank, given the extravagance of the bounteous fall harvest we enjoyed, much of it from our own gardens or trees.

Wyona found a recipe for a cocoanut tart early in the summer.

Saturday was her first chance to bring her ideas about this tart to fruition.

Some topped the tart with whipping cream.

Others used it as a chance to have a side of D Dutchmans' Peaches and Cream ice cream.

Glen tasted Moiya's Zucchini Cake and said it was the best brownie he had ever tasted.

He was right to identify the dense chocolate bar as the best anything he had ever tasted.

a dining room with a view

Well, that is about it for an evening well lived.

Who knew there could be so much happiness that began with the need to cook a joint of ham?

Arta