An Vegan Meal

When planning last week's dinner I had meat in mind - not sure why I persist in thinking I might succeed in getting 6 meat eating guests at once - it almost never happens. Last weekend was no exception - in fact, it was extreme.

One guest reported - no lima beans or whole olives please. No sweat. Another pair backed out at the last minute and the third couple delivered, the dreaded, "95% vegan, thanks for asking." She of course would be happy to eat the veggies ... but that's not our style. So I called some vegetarian friends (why not maximize the effort and sort of aggregate the non-meat eaters) and went about building a vegan meal.

I started with olive tapenade, tomato and basil rounds ... (the olives were far from whole), avocado soup - room temperature with soy whipping cream. Budda's delight - which is a several-kinds-of-tofu, several-kinds-of-stock, several-kinds-of-mushrooms, sprouts, peas, and glass noodles (think veggie chineese noodle stew). A struddle made with kale, sun dried tomato and cheese for the rest of us, my stricter guest had rice cheese. Dessert was the only exception - we had raspberry lemon soufle - she's willing to eat eggs if they come from freerange hens.

As far as the meal went - the soup was very smooth and tasty but made me think too much of guacamole - probably says more about my limited view of the precious avocado. I enjoyed the Buddha's Delight and could have stopped there. Alas - we persisted to the next course anyway. The struddle was good but I would have added more goo in the form of dairy next time. Souffle - tasty and dramatic and the most amazing pink.

As is clear, I enjoy cooking, and feeding. But what makes these dinners so great is the conversation and energy of the guests, as a group. This last weekend was particularly fun with jovial, intelligent conversation that all held together. The trick is to get a good mix and try to avoid breaking up into smaller side conversations (especially prevalent in parties larger than 8).

It was a hit and I know this because one pair announced the need to leave early to attend to some other obligations - they didn't get up and out the door until nearly midnight. Ha! We win!

A Number of Occassions

We've done these dinners for almost two years. We've been invited back to similar events by our guests twice. That made us feel like losers. We thought back through the history of our relationship and realized we'd been invited - for a sit down dinner - 6 or 7 times in 9 years. We're not counting the family-friends (folks who are "the usual suspects" who might drop by for dinner, nor are we counting potlucks and the like). Work-related dinners don't count either. 

Swallowing our pride we started asking around. Many people said they'd had occasion to invite or be invited to a sit-down dinner 2 or 3 times in the last ten years - that was the most typical response. We had couple of professor-types who said 10-12 but that was the high mark. Many people said none, or, one (ours). Besides serving to make us feel better about such an abysmal social record it made me curious. Then I started asking people without kids ... much much higher numbers. Our study will not be truly scientific until some of those folks have kids and watch their own - quiet dinners with friends - plummet too!