I have this strong memory of entertaining at sit-down dinners. That is something that hasn’t happened here for some time, but there is the memory. I remember all of the planning. Beforehand, I would cruise my glass-fronted China cabinets and select glassware and dishes for the event. Now, I am not Martha Stewart with several collections of fine china from which to choose. My collection, if you can call it that, ranges from 12 large dinner plates which I purchased at the dollar store to a partial set of fine Syracuse China. My glassware is, to utilize a term better used elsewhere, heterogeneous, which translated means that I mostly have matching glasses for five people, so once our dinner crowd exceeds that number, it’s mix and match. The menu always, and I am not ashamed to reveal this, started with dessert. Why not?
Cleaning up after a long-ago dinner, I clearly recall one of our guests commenting on the nice things on which we had supped.
“You don’t get to use them often, now that it’s just the two of you?”
And she was so right, not that we trotted out anything that even came close to what we used when the kids were home even though we were more engaged, entertained more.
It still catches me up short to realize how much more we accomplished when we had more to do. Did we have lower standards of housekeeping, meal preparation? Did we have more energy?
Probably all of the above. I do distinctly remember the dust bunnies cavorting under the sleepy hollow chair that occupied the corner of our living room and thinking that gourmet meant serving a concoction of Campbell’s tomato and pea soup to guests. Of course, there were better days, when the house was immaculate and my menu far more attuned to epicurean delights, but we got by with less guilt, less angst. We also knew less, experienced less and had kids at home. It’s the latter variable that mediated a lot of our lives … happily so … but nevertheless, life is different without them.
I can distinctly remember that we were enthusiastic about inviting people to dinner, but having to fit such dinners in around what the children were doing. It’s really tough to entertain adults at a sit-down dinner when there are eight or nine young girls engaged in a ritual known as a sleepover, or to have a leisurely candlelit evening on the patio when several boys are playing at camping out in pup tents not three feet away. But we did it, with gusto, I might add.
There were times when, to accomplish some kind of civilized conversation over the meal, we had to improvise, which meant hiring a sitter to entertain our offspring upstairs. Moving the TV, arranging for snacks, etc. so that the adults could enjoy each other’s company without the interjection of “he’s looking at me” was the focal point of the exercise.
For me, the art of entertaining at dinner was a learned skill. My parents only “had people over” who were relatives and then only at Thanksgiving. A dinner party was something to be found in novels and on the movie screen.
The learning curve was steep, but once I had a foothold on the necessities, which included making sure that the bathrooms were spotless, I could cruise. Still, those long-ago parties were far more planned and elegant than those that we might throw together today. I’ve narrowed my repertoire to a few good dishes, recipes with which I am so familiar that I can make them in my sleep. I no longer spend days prior to the event cleaning, cooking all day and spending time primping. The food is something I prepare a day or so ahead. I can make the house presentable with a Swiffer and my vacuum. My attire is usually quite casual. I don’t miss the fussiness of those days at all. Our guests being of “a certain age” have also mellowed and are content with the version of dinner party that I now can present.
Perhaps it was easier because old friendships have settled into the meaning of it all, the fact that we were together to enjoy each other’s company. Perhaps we came to understand that good food need not be an elaborate burden, but, like the friends that we invite, an easy, comforting way to say welcome. Stay a while. Of course…this description requires the use of verbal forms with which I am unfamiliar. How do you indicate that you are prepared to do something that you no longer do? Is it past perfect progressive? Or perfect but past?
Time and context mediate what we can do, aspire to and accomplish.
It has been many years since we’ve entertained with our young offspring in the house and too long since we “had people over” without them. The context in which we are now living takes dinner parties off our household’s menu.
Context or no, I would tell you that my fondest wish is to have my children and grandsons share a Sunday meal with us. Actually, it doesn’t have to be Sunday. Any day would fill the bill. It is a way to give a gift that includes the planning and execution of love through a meal. But, like we were in the way back years, our offspring are energetically living full, active lives, entertaining in their own homes, and there is only joy for me in that. We will have to settle for the role of guest at their tables.
Still, I would be less than truthful if I didn’t admit that I missed the pleasure of entertaining friends and family with all of the falderal that I subscribed to then. For now, it will have to be the memories, and, if I am truly honest, I miss the context of children, the need to work around the notion of adult dinners and little kids. For all the arrangements that it took, I miss those little heads peering at me from the top of the stairs, their devilish desire to join the adults and my quick run to their beds to kiss them goodnight.
It was and is all good.
