My dinner partay started off, amusingly, with me calling Mike around 5 and reminding him that we were set for dinner tonight.
After a very long pause (during which I began to worry about him), he sheepishly admitted that he was hanging out with his new squeeze. I assured him that it was okay and got off the phone shaking my head and laughing.
Suzanne, Paul, Jeff, Keith and I ate, talked, ate some more, watched Bubba-Hotep (Suzanne hadn’t seen it) and played lots of pinball. Supper consisted of (why, do you ask, do you always put the food in? because my mother eats extremely boring food so this is kinda food schadenfreude) pork chomps and chicken breasts and corn on the barbecue, plus I bought Portuguese buns and made three-cheese buns on the cue. Recipe follows. Suzanne brought puréed squash with cinnamon, squash gems (bacon and squash rolled in corn flakes) AND home made carrot cake with scratch made cream cheese icing. I made a macédoine of vegetables (zucchini, broccoli, lima beans, green beens, carrots and onions, all fresh except the lima beans).
Cheese melts. I took the left over feta, which I had soaked in water rather than brine so it was much less salty, medium cheedar and parmesan, and mixed that all up, then added pepper, basil, parsley and garlic powder, then stuffed the buns, then wrapped each individually and tossed them on the cue. Keith turned up when there were two left and then devoured them with an eagerness that was truly remarkable. I know I made the damned things to be eaten; I wasn’t expecting to watch them disappear like soap bubbles.
Speaking of truly remarkable: KEITH DIDN’T GO HOME. He appeared at my bedroom door, remarked that he had just put down the game controller for Arkham Asylum, and that he’d like breakfast. I told him to help himself to the leftover waffles. (I make waffles pretty much every Saturday morning with the waffle iron Jeff inherited from Granny.) So he didn’t sleep over, but he didn’t go home.
Anyway, Paul brought the corn, which was yummy, and two pies which we didn’t even touch because the carrot cake was SO amazing (superlative, actually, maybe best ever) so I feel like I hardly had to cook at all. We had much enjoyment of each other – everybody very mellow and low key and comfy. Suzanne drinks very sparingly, but I thought I would tempt her by picking up some Baja Rosa yesterday, and she had one small glass on the rocks, on the back deck while perusing Jeff’s copy of the Joy of Cooking for yet more squash recipes (her friends keep giving them to her).
From all this is should be obvious that I had a good time. I think everybody else did too.