Man oh man. I was trying to post once-a-day last week, ya’ll. Really, I was.
So I posted on Monday and Tuesday only. Lame-o. Reason why: I was prepping for a dinner party on Friday. So, Swim class on Wednesday and food shopping/ prep on Thursday and cooking/ entertaining on Friday did not bode well for the bloggy world.
But! Lovely news! Jen at Conversion Diary is hosting a 7 posts in 7 days link-up and if I love anything it’s a solid goal. So! Here’s my dinner party run-down. In 7 points, just because.
Dinner party points, since it’s been using up my mind-space and my camera-memory-space.
In one of my college classes my professor told us that two things happen in communication: talking and listening. And if the listen-er doesn’t understand…it’s the speaker’s job/ responsibility to help them out. Blame falls on the speaker, not the listen-er, when things aren’t clear.
So, I guess I screwed that one up yesterday when I meandered to our local fish mart.
This fish mart has been around my entire life. Fun fact: I remember the older neighborhood girls telling me their older neighborhood brother worked at said fish-mart when I was a wee beebee (I probably didn’t even know how to ride the infamous TWO-WHEELED bike sans my lone training wheel). Neighborhood-girlz told me the workers all wore gas masks because the stench was so bad.
This was probably an Elementary school embellishment.
But, either way, I had never shopped there.
Until yesterday. (Cue music?)
I stopped in after work like, “Hi. I’m hosting a dinner party tomorrow. I’ve never shopped here before, what do you recommend? :)”
And the lady freaked out a little bit. Apparently she thought I had never made fish before and here I was about to have guests over (twenty!! Heart attack!) with no experience.
“I would never do that,” she said, “you must have a lot of confidence” (several times she said this).
And it was a little weird because she made it sound like I had plans to walk to the Yukon with nothing but a change of clothes. And salmon-prep isn’t exactly hiking to the Yukon.
I eventually realized the communication break-down: she thinking I was a beginner to all things food-prep, while I meant I was a beginner at the store.
My bad.
But, at that point it was too late so I just bought my fish and went home.
For the record, it turned out just fine. 🙂
So there probably aren’t many people consistently struck with the beauty of fresh vegetables but, I’ll admit, I sure am. If you see someone taking photos of the vegetable displays in your local grocery store, it’s probably me.
I was approaching check-out and received this text from an unrevealed friend: “would you like us to bring anything tomorrow? snacks? props?…”
That. List. 🙂
My options are snacks…and props.
I love that this is who I am and this is who my friends are, OK?
Because I know what I like, but will my guests want that? And will it match my food? So many questions. So much time spent pacing and chewing fingernails.
This is probably the tripiest point, so go ahead and skip, if need be. But, I’ve always like the kitchen-arts. In some way, I feel linked to my ancestors when I’m in the kitchen. My grandmother who made the stunning carrot cake. My great aunt who owned a restaurant. My aunts who are always hosting. And then, me. I who spend time checking out cookbooks from the library. I who worked food prep to fund my collegiate experience.
And when I was diagnosed gluten-free/ meat-free, suddenly the repertoire of favorite recipes was obsolete. My blue-ribbon gingerbread? Gluten. The best chicken marinade from my friend’s mom? Meat. And on and on. It was hard and weird.
But, Thursday I stayed up into the evening dicing vegetables, and I’m happy. I’m happy because I’ve come a long way. I’m happy because I know what I’m doing (mostly. Always learning, obviously). I’m happy because I hosted, yo.
They came, they saw, they conquered. Such friends. Much fun.
Photos!
😉
Catch you tomorrow, friends!