Dinner Guest #36 - The B. Family

Sunday, September 16, 2012

In the fall of 2007, we found ourselves in a challenging housing situation.

Out of the blue, I received a letter from my landlord that due to some family issues, he needed his house back.  He wanted us to move out in 30 days.  We were sad to leave the cute home we had been renting for the past year.  Plus, we were tired of moving.  We had moved four times in the previous three years.  To add a little more fuel to the fire, Kate was two, Jack was 7 months old, and I learned I was pregnant again.

Our realtor, Mr. B. saved the day.

He found us the house we’ve been living in for the last five years and where we will most likely stay for the next twenty.  I love the house, the neighborhood, the large garden park my children ride their bikes to school, and our neighbors (see Dinner Guest #32).

This Sunday, we had our realtor, Mr. B., his amazing wife, and their four energetic boys over to dinner.  Not knowing how much four boys (ages 3 to 11) will eat, I made too much food on purpose.  The meal consisted of Heavenly Chicken, Brazilian Rice and Feijoada, Brazilian cheese bread, parmesan rolls, spinach salad with balsalmic dressing, and sweet potato casserole.  Mrs. B brought a large fruit platter and for dessert, I served cream cheese brownies. After watching Jack eat more brownies than I could count, I asked him to stop.  He sat, sulked, and stared at the plate long enough for me to catch a photo of his protest.

After the meal, our children played, and fought, and cried, and ultimately ended up outside in the front yard while the moms washed dishes.  The dads sat on the driveway in lawn chairs and refereed the chaos.

We love the B. family.  Our paths cross almost daily at elementary school, piano lessons, driving through our neighborhood, or at church on Sundays.   If some unexpected event sends us searching for another home, I will call Mr. B. again. 

He’s just that good.

Dinner Guest #35 - Meals on Wheels

Sunday, September 9, 2012

One of the hardest Sunday dinner complications has become the last minute

CANCELLATION

On Sunday morning, we found out that our dinner guests had a sick child and could not come over.  While I expressed the appropriate empathetic comments and promised to invite them again sometime, my mind flashed over the large quantities of food that would go uneaten.  I fretted,

“Can I really secure another dinner guest in eight hours?”

Most of our dinner guests have been invited several weeks in advance.   I generally try to avoid last minute dinner invitations.  I worry the invitation may come across as insincere or somehow less respectful of another family’s social calendar.   I wonder if it rudely implies:

“Hey, I obviously didn’t put much thought into having you over, and I know you are not doing anything important tonight, so why don’t you come over to dinner only because I cooked too much food….”

After learning that our good friends, the V. family, also had a sick Daddy, I quickly found a solution to my problem:

Meals on Wheels

Sunday afternoon I cooked up my usual storm of dishes:  barbecue pork sandwiches with cole slaw, fresh corn salad, baked potato skins with cheddar cheese and bacon, fruit salad, and homemade oatmeal cookies.  However, instead of tidying the house, scrubbing all the peanut butter stains from the kitchen chairs, and mopping the floor, I simply packed up the meal into foil containers and delivered Sunday dinner promptly to the V. family at 5:30 pm.

Our family ate the other half of the same meal and enjoyed a quiet Sunday evening to ourselves.

I could get used to this.

Dinner Guest #34 - The S. Family

Sunday, September 2, 2012

One of the most frequent questions we pose to our guests while gathered around the kitchen table during Sunday dinners is:

“So, how did you two meet?”

Surprisingly, the story telling process follows the same predictable pattern.  Husband and wife look at each other smiling as if to say, “Are you going to tell this, or me?”  Husband starts talking, wife interjects with minute details that can only be remembered if you are female, and at some point they disagree on exactly how the events went down.  The story then becomes he-said versus she-said.  The tale ends happily ever after with anecdotes from their honeymoon on an island in the Caribbean or Hawaii.

One of my favorite “How did you two meet” stories comes from the S. family.    While I’m an obviously absent third party with a selective memory, here is my version of how Mr. and Mrs. S. fell in love:

Mr. S. met the future Mrs. S. at a singles activity sponsored by their church.  Mrs. S. could tell that Mr. S. was interested, but played it cool and coy.  Several days later, Mrs. S. receives a text from one of the church leaders saying,

“Hey, give this guy a chance!”

Then, Mr. S. makes his move.  At a church blood drive, Mr. S. requests that he be seated next to the gurney where Mrs. S. is being prepped and poked for donation.  While reclining, right arms oddly angled out like a cyclist’s turn signal, blood slowly dripping into meticulously labeled plastic bags, Mr. S. and the future Mrs. S. chat, and flirt, and fall in love.  Many dates and months later, Mr. and Mrs. S. get married and honeymoon in the Dominican Republic.

After hearing their story, I wondered if United Blood Services, Match.com, and producers of the Twlight movies ought to seriously considering working together.   Who knows what lives could be saved from a “Give Blood – Fall in Love” advertising campaign.

For dinner I served most of my usual dishes:  Heavenly Chicken over Brazilian Rice, sautéed green beans with almonds and bacon, fresh corn salad with basil, and parmesan rolls.  Mrs. S. brought a fruit salad of watermelon, grapes and bananas—all of my kids’ favorites.  For dessert, I tested out a new brownie recipe from allrecipes.com that turned out very tasty over vanilla ice cream, chocolate sauce, and chopped nuts.

After our dinner guests recount their “How did you two meet?” story, we are often posed the same question.  This Sunday, Kate decided to answer.  It was both interesting and entertaining to hear Kate narrate an oddly jumbled, inaccurate version of how her parents met.  The truth is, we don’t really have a creative, romantic story like Mr. and Mrs. S.  However, I’m wondering if I ought to invent one just to spice up the Sunday dinner conversation. 

Better yet, next week, we’ll have Jack and Rock deliver the Story of Us.  Something like, 

"Mommy and Daddy met at a Superhero Lego convention.  Daddy was dressed as Captain America, Mommy was Cat Woman....."