How to Effortlessly Throw A Simple Luncheon ( A Novella)

Hahahahahha. Go read Martha. I don't know.

If you want to do it the hard way, read on.

First beg invite Susan down from the Cape to celebrate the Bday.

Then invite 18 to 20 other friends to join us.

Find a tempting recipe by Sam Sifton and decide that it sounds easy and will feed many without a great deal of work.

( insert laugh track)

Susan arrives Friday. We head out to eat Thai food and idly discuss the menu.

Get up early(ish) on Saturday, bask in the sun, drink coffee, make shopping list, be surprised Indian butter chicken actually includes butter. Lots of butter, and heavy cream.  Express amazement. Susan begins to worry. Did I even read the recipe through?

No.

Start at farmers market, purchase $$$ cream and $$$ tomatoes for salad. Go to Starbucks. Drive home to drop off cream but find road construction going on and such confusing detour instructions decide to drive on to large Oriental market to get vegetables and spices.

Make a stop at the Vietnamese shopping center for lunch, find Moon festival in full swing.

Carry heavy plastic bag of $$$ heavy cream into restaurant. Ask them for more plastic bags and please put in cooler till we've finished lunch. They kindly agree.

Eat delicious lunch, retrieve cream and reach market in spite of my directions. Other driver very unhappy with our turn. Lets Susan know it.

Enter market where we load up on mangoes, mustard seeds, fresh herbs and bags of onions. Susan is carrying the increasingly heavy bag(s) of cream. Ice beginning to melt. 

We make it home. Unload. Head out for Trader Joes and Whole Foods. Forget rice. Remember rice.

Pick up $1.00 tablecloth from drycleaners. Originally a slightly stained, highly wrinkled linen mess, for $20.00 it is now a thing of beauty, luckily other flea market find good to go. These cloths and that damn recipe were inspiration for party.  Direct Susan to gas station, apparently bad directions again. Second man yells at her. We whiz by gas station. I finally speak up. Weren't we going there I wonder? We laugh hysterically, time is beginning to speed by.

. Grab Starbucks, drive home,unload groceries, settle down in front of TV to relax and watch a little college football, drink our coffees and eat yummy fruit scone from farmers market.

Phone rings, it's the flower shop. The party I booked for next Saturday the 27th, is this Saturday the 20th. Have panic attack. Susan starts car, we arrive at shop at 5:30, driver out the door with 25 arrangements by 6:30.

Stop apologizing and go home. Check out rash on stomach. Hope to hell it's hives not shingles.

Run out to World Market, buy napkins, pick up pizza, go home. Water plants in dark. Eat pizza. Marinate pounds of chicken thighs. Susan chops onions. They are so strong she wipes eyes with paper towel. Towel so abrasive she ends up blackening her eye. Very carefully cut mangoes for chutney, realize no sugar in house, Susan runs out to the Giant, no one yells at her. Chutney ready at 11:15pm.

Take half a valium, go to bed.  

Sunday morning. Good God. Susan starts chopping pounds of onions, 12 tablespoons of ginger, innumerable gloves of garlic.  I water garden, cut flowers from everyone's yards, fill vases, clean up patio, pick peppers from neighbors garden and tomatoes from my garden. Susan chops peppers and burns the tips of her fingers so severely she has to keep Googling ways to stop the pain.

While I start to cook, Susan and little roommate bring chairs down from attic and up from basement. Two 9 foot tables already in place, 20 chairs at the ready. Carlos, my neighbor, comes over, cleans back deck, moves bags of soil and mulch from front patio to under deck. Brings over folding table for buffet. I run the vacuum and mop kitchen floor, Susan chops vegetables for salad as I shower. I make salad dressing while she showers.

The former Mr. Baby and mother arrive with bottles of wine, beer and bags of ice, plates for appetizers, Mr. B's father arrives with samosas and other Indian nibbles.
 Suddenly it's 2:00, show time.

We greet, we laugh, we talk, we eat. Chicken disappears. Chutney applauded. Friends have made 3 birthday cakes. Three I tell you, carrot, raspberry almond and apple. Big bowl of whipped cream with raspberries. Singing, pictures taken, phone numbers exchanged, a bit of gossip too.

7:30 it's over. The dish and clothes washers full, chairs back in attic, cats back in house, feeling back in Susan's fingertips, rash definitely hives. Whew.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

I get by with a lot of help from my friends.

And a box of coffee from Starbucks.


( Thank you all for your birthday wishes. Sorry you couldn't join us. You could have brought your own chairs. And forks)