Lights! Camera! Action!

For most of high school, and a good deal of junior high, my free time was spent in the theatre wing, reading lines, hammering on sets and soaking up the behind the scenes atmosphere so heavy when you are 14 years old. My contributions were generally backstage, sorting out costumes and arranging set plans, but occasionally I was called to the stage, most frequently appearing as the tottering old woman in whatever production was headlining that semester. I became a master at graying my straight brown hair, tying it into a bun and creating, with brown and white pencils, the lines that now decorate my face permanently. With the rest of the cast I gathered just before curtain time, holding hands in a circle, passing love with one squeeze to the next and handing out The Robe, a gift to the crew member deemed most vital to that performance. The minutes before curtain were, for me, the whole of why I was in theatre at all, the anticipation and excitement worth all the long nights and hard work.

When I graduated from college with no clear idea of what I wanted to do, I found a job waiting tables. Friendly but forgetful, I quickly acclimated to the topsy turvy schedule and grew to love my year of living without direction. When I worked in the evening, we arrived around 3:30, an hour and a half before the dinner service began. Once the assigned prep work was done, salads in the cooler, napkins rolled with silverware, we all sat down to a quick meal of whatever was getting old in the walk-in, and a pep talk from the chef on duty that night. The camaraderie of the assembled crew was contagious, knowing that for this to be a successful night we all had to work together. When the first table was sat the show began. My mother, who was not at all pleased with my educated career choice, softened a bit when I likened this time to my high school theatre days, and the excitement of curtain time.

Each year we host a holiday party, a crowded affair, with too many people crammed into our small apartment. I spend weeks planning and preparing, organizing and shopping. I'm up early on party day, cooking, while Jack gathers anything without an assigned space to be put in our bedroom, the designated dump closet. Mary and Kate now pitch in, responsible for the playroom, soon to be completely destroyed by the army of children scheduled to arrive. With an hour left before the first guest arrives, I'm usually showered but not dressed, fumbling around the kitchen in my old bathrobe and slippers, wet hair piled onto the top of my head. The four of us work together on the final preparations: snipping chives on crostini, lighting red candles, hiding puzzles from three year old guests, and chilling beer and juice boxes on the back porch. At 30 minutes I'm sent away, to lose The Robe and hide those pesky lines now appearing daily on my forehead. Minutes before the first buzzer I appear, ready to face the evening, my fellow cast and crew by my side. We share our own love, knowing we have all worked hard to make this evening a success. Even now, almost thirty years later, the show goes on.

Culinary Inspiration

We generally start the planning on the beach. Sprawled on a towel in Michigan, while the girls bury my feet, inspiration hits, often with a quick shot of sand to the face, about something I could assemble using cranberries, sage and walnuts. Jack responds with a wine offering, something he has pulled from the latest Wine Spectator, recently read on the back patio while fighting off mosquitoes, long after bed time. We move effortlessly into long and painfully dull conversations about goat cheese and gin, roasted nuts and tapenade, which entertain us for the remaining days of our summer sojourn.

But this year the wheels were slow to turn, for no real reason. We dragged our feet, the lists were short, without my usual mad scribble, and we took a very long time deciding which ridiculous project we were going to undertake weeks before the guests were scheduled to arrive. In the end we moved rooms, shifting four of our seven rooms, a project which really sucked the life out of my menu planning.

As always some things sound much better on the beach in Michigan, a tart shell topped with arugula, Camembert, walnuts and pears sounded simple and delicious, in execution it was soggy and pungent, not a best seller. Pink eye and the Remodel Project left me culinarily uninspired, but 93 friends wedged into our small apartment made me happy, albeit claustrophobic. More than twenty children under the age of six in any space is madness, letting them loose in our new playroom was simple insanity. And then Santa arrived and any thoughts of a child free party next year vanished.

Plenty of food, drink, joy and children, not to mention good friends, Santa and a priest from the church at the end of the street, the best recipe I could create for holiday cheer. Merry Christmas!

From Our House to Yours

The final count, 78, about 25 of which were children under the age of seven, a very full apartment, full of friends and food, wine and cheer, and one large Santa. Bouncing immediately from Thanksgiving to our Holiday Open House was a silly calendar pick, madness for the week between, but great fun, another year of memories in the bank, and plenty of leftover food in the fridge. As we always do, last night was our recap, what went well, what did not, what we will do differently next year, notes to go into my entertaining journal that I always misplace when the time comes to reference last years hits and misses.


Notes are taped everywhere in the kitchen, for me, the caterer, the sister, Santa...

With some energetic help from my capable sister, I do all the cooking and we then hire a caterer to serve, prepare, make drinks, take coats, spiff, and keep the evening moving. After a month trapped in the kitchen, trying out new ideas, the plan is that I will not step foot into the food arena on the night of the event. This years menu, the planned menu, went something like this:

Gruyere cheesecake with spinach and mushrooms
Goat cheese terrines with arugula pesto and cranberry walnut goop
Potato cakes with smoked salmon and creme fraiche
Polenta triangles topped with either a black bean spread or a pesto marscapone combination
Bruschetta with artichoke lemon puree or white bean and rosemary mush
Mushroom pastries
Mimi's cheese and spinach balls (I serve these at every event we have)
Roasted nuts, which I always burn, but not this year thanks to my friend Karen
Cheese Board
Prosciutto wrapped figs and pears
Mimi's whiskey balls (potent, tasty, all gone)
Cookies from the Italian bakery

Lessons learned this year begin here:

1. Do not hire a caterer who refuses to warm the polenta. Non warmed polenta is really just yellow rubber with food on top.
2. Do not allow caterer to remove you from the kitchen when nothing is being served but the cold polenta.
3. Eat a whiskey ball early to insure that you get one, and that you enjoy the rest of the evening.
4. Hang a sign outside your door that reads something like this "PLEASE WEAR YOUR SHOES". I know people are trying to be nice but please, wear shoes to my party, please.
5.Do not leave candy canes out in reach of children. We have candy cane smears everywhere, sticky and messy candy cane remains.
6. Take note of what is coming out of the kitchen. Where were the mushrooms, the spinach balls?
7. Take care to feed your children, I found Kate with a plate of cheese, happy yes, but was this really her dinner?
8. No home improvement projects in the month prior. Last year we had a man and a table saw on our front porch at 2:00 when the first guest was due to arrive at 4:00. Not so dramatic this year, I sent out a chair to be reupholstered, it arrived around 10pm on Friday night, that's nothing.

Santa was a new addition this year. We thought Mary and Kate would explode when he walked in, we were wrong. They both looked at him, somewhat awed, and stood, mouths open for several minutes. Post shock they showed him to a chair and stood directly in front of him for about 15 minutes, talking. Kate then gave him a tour of our apartment. From phone call to phone call I somehow managed to find Santa, the Santa that turns on the lights at the Mayor's Christmas Tree. My poor husband. Santa was wonderful.

Of course the most important thing to note is something we already knew, how very lucky we are to consider this group of people our friends. We take this opportunity to include everyone we know, a time to catch up, say thanks, and visit with people we love and don't see often enough. Thanks for coming! Put your shoes back on!