Dinner Partied

I had this fantasy about Saturday in which I was going to finish prep cooking for dinner, set the tables, carve a giant block of chocolate into a birthday tribute featuring Steve through the ages and then sit down with a glass of wine while I wrote something here before my guests arrived.

Didn't happen. Do you have any idea how long it takes to micro-dice enough vegetables to fill twenty baked tomatoes? Neither did I so I seriously underestimated. Actually I underestimated how long it would take to do everything and I was running behind all day. 

Fortunately I had lots of help. Steve's birth mother chopped vegetables and set up bowls and platters for appetizers, her husband polished wine glasses, Steve's Dad washed all of my prep dishes, Steve... well Steve decided he needed to clean the glass shelves in a couple of kitchen cabinets. Three or four years ago this would have made me shrrriiiiiiiieeeeeeek with crazed irritation but this time I just giggled while I finished making the food. I suspect the presence of three extra adults who were doing useful things enabled me to be more indulgent about Steve's little, oh let's call it a quirk, of finding some obscure task to complete minutes before guests arrive (someone in the comments here once told a similar story about her husband painting doorknobs so that's what we call it now) or maybe I've mellowed. Or perhaps it was his birthday. In any event I looked over at Steve, unshowered and standing on a chair with a bottle of Windex at three-quarters to party o'clock, and I just laughed. 

So for a while Steve was painting doorknobs but then he applied himself to the question of how to create unified seating for twenty within a nonlinear space using an odd assortment of tables that for some reason gradually decreased in height. It looked like hell, actually, and then my friend Noelle showed up with an armful of pretty tablecloths and my friend Lauren came and took over feeding the children and everyone bustled around with mismatched napkins and plates and we all drank some wine and voila. It sort of worked.

I know I shouldn't say it but the dinner itself was great. My decision to plank grill salmon almost went aft agley, though. We had never done it before and it was only as everyone was sitting down that we discovered two things: the grill could only fit two planks at a time (thus half the party started eating fifteen minutes after the other half - I don't think anyone cared since we had all started drinking at the same time) and although the package said the planks were reusable they incinerated. Literally.

Steve came in from the grill with the first round of salmon and whispered, "The planks caught fire and turned into ash" and I blinked in concern at the fish but it was fine. Delicious even - moist and yet, you know, smoky. Also Steve had asked for ratatouille so I found a recipe for a kinda deconstructed one served in baked tomatoes and went with that. I quadrupled the recipe for the filling but I had quintupled the number of tomatoes so... you do the math. In fact I wish you had done the math because I was pretty worried about the amount of rat to my touille but it wound up being fine, too. Yet again my lack of spatial reasoning skills had deceived me and the tomato cavities were not in fact larger than the tomato divots plus zucchini and eggplant and pepper and onion. Then there was my standard wild rice with lentils and bacon that can be made hours - if not days - in advance, and salad greens with balsamic and I made focaccia with garlic and herbs because I love to make focaccia.

Oh and I bought a grocery store cake and Patrick stuck a deer head magnet on it and we called it a day. 

Speaking of Patrick he came and slipped an arm around me as I was standing to propose a toast. Part of my mind thought it was sweet and part of my mind was worried about the cup of... just then he managed to drop half a pint of chocolate milk down my leg. I finished the toast from the floor while I mopped up.

The birthday boy looking a bit like Monty Burns.

PS OH OH OH! I almost forgot! I had this idea that I would, oh god, use balloons to freeze water and make some ice luminarias.

Ready? 

Do they, er, remind you of anything?

Steve's collection of assorted parents gathered around for the big reveal - intrigued by my apparent craftiness as I pulled balloons out of the freezer - and I DIED. Died laughing, I mean, because I am twelve. And I made ice breasts. With a nipples.

Happy birthday, Steve, and as the gynecologist said to everybody, "This might feel a little cold."

Comments

[Sara]

Do we have the recipe for this delicious sounding wild rice with bacon? Everything is better with bacon!!!
And I love the ice sculptures. Priceless.

And my husband also paints doorknobs. Must be a man thing. Drives me batty but have started to laugh about it. Maybe it is because I have three kids three and under.

[Jenn]

Please to be sharing your recipe for focaccia?

My husband's speciality is waiting until I have everything under control and cooking in a perfectly timed fashion and then coming in to bustle around while stirring and rearranging everything. Then I get irritated and he says he'll never help again.

[Leepert]

Did you soak the planks?

[Beth]

My husband paints door knobs. One time he decided to climb on the roof and clean a sky light rather than...oh...vacuum or wash dishes or something. We (mostly) laugh about it these days.

I have to echo leepert: did you soak the planks?

Sounds like a delicious feast = well done!

[Sarah Wynde]

And what did you do for appetizers? Also a second vote for the rice with lentils and bacon recipe, please!

[Jen]

I just had to tell my kids "adult humor - I can't show you" while I giggled.

[Jean]

The ice breasts came out very good. You did a good job. lol

[Brandy]

Bwahahaha!! Those are the best ice boobies I've ever seen! And the rest sounds delightful. :-)

[Jan]

I nearly bleamed my beer. In any case, strangely beautiful and appropriate as they were for a birthday party; the "nipples" must have amplified the candle flames.

[Jen]

Do you read Catherine Newman?
www.benandbirdy.blogspot.com

She has a similarly funny story about a homemade pinata.

[Val]

Oh, Julia!! Thank you for the laughs. Happy birthday, Steve. :)

[Melina]

Those cold, cold breasts made my night. Thank you.

[Angie]

Best. Luminarias. Ever. You really need to market that idea.

[Jill]

I echo Sara--recipe for rice with lentils etc., please. I love the ice breasts. And my husband also paints doorknobs. And thinks that 10 minutes is plenty of time to shower, fix the hot water heater, email an old friend, and watch a really interesting interview on the interwebs. I try to laugh, with varying success. I have gotten spoiled with your posting--such a bright spot in my day!

[Laura]

Thanks for the awesome post! It has been a crap day, but at least I didn't present my boss with ice breasts, so I have that going for me.

[Margot]

Rat to my touille? Damn you are a clever lady.

[Shannon]

In our house (i.e., the house of my childhood) we call that vacuuming window wells. We used to have an "orphans' brunch" on Christmas Day where all our family friends who weren't out of town visiting family would come over for a few hours of food and relaxation. For us, this meant a frantic period of showering/cleaning/straightening/present-stowing in the late morning. One year, while I was dusting and my mom was hurrying to lay out food, we looked over to see my Dad vacuuming window wells. You know, just in case we wanted to open the windows. On Christmas. In New Jersey.

More than 15 years later, my mother and I still mutter "window wells" to each other when my Dad starts, well, painting doorknobs.

[maureenreads]

OMG, my husband is a doorknob painter also....he decides that the windows need washing (for a 7pm dinner party in the winter) and all I want is someone to vacuum....the dirt on the carpet apparently is invisible, whereas the dirt on the night time windows??

[Kathy Fields]

I will confess the I paint doorknobs, but I do it as we are packing to go on overnight or longer trips.

It took a while but I finally figured out that I want the house clean for our funerals in case we're killed while away.

This unfortunately does not apply during daily life.

[LMM]

Hee. I'm so adopting "painting doorknobs". It reminds me of the time we were hosting 20 people for Thanksgiving and I had to go out of town on business until late Tuesday and while I was gone John decided to install in-wall speakers so we'd have music for dinner. Which was great, but not only was none of the cleaning he was supposed to do done, but the drilling into the walls coated everything in the house - the entire house! - with a fine layer of plaster dust. He very nearly died by my hand.

[andrea]

I think my next party will have to have some ice luminarias. Thank you so much!

[Hetty Fauxvert]

Oh. My. Freakin. Word. The nipple ice luminarias. NO other blogger has actually reduced me to helpless tears of laughter before! I'm still sniffling. Congratulations!!!

(BTW, if my husband looked like that, could paint my doorknobs anytime. Just sayin'.)

[Noelle]

Julia, everything was truly wonderful (food & company), but you should please describe your RIDICULOUSLY DELICIOUS ceviche appetizer (or ceviche-type dish...?) that I could not inhale fast enough. Y'all, it was so damned good I could barely stand straight!

Painting doorknobs is Ted's specialty. Surely I've described how he/we painted the living room & dining room in our old house the two days before our wedding (and wedding-related houseguests)?!

[Kristen]

I am so glad I have a name for it now! We are trying to sell our house and while I spend hours cleaning absolutely everything before a showing, he spends hours organizing comic books in a file cabinet!

[Alexicographer]

Your breasts are beautiful, but I'm perplexed: aren't luminarias paper bags with candles in them? What's ice got to do with them?

I'm prone to painting doorknobs in the same way as Kathy Fields, though I think/hope it's just so I can return to a clean house. Since I don't get to live in one.

[snickollet]

All these comments and no one has pointed out how Steve looks like George Clooney?

Your dinner sounds delicious and fun. Brava!

[DJH]

Best. Post. Ever.
Funny story, gorg hubby, and epic ice boobies.

I've only laughed out loud at a blogger once before: Jenny Lawson's Beyonce, the Giant Metal Chicken. http://thebloggess.com/2011/06/and-thats-why-you-should-learn-to-pick-your-battles/

So glad you are posting more often. Please save this stuff for your book!

[Sara]

Do share that recipe for rice, lentils, and bacon!

[Annette]

I think we have enough data now to officially call it a guy thing. Data point n + 1: my husband checking the batteries on the smoke alarms while I was frantically trying to prepare a big dinner for 15 people.
Boobies or not: how is this supposed to work? I mean, they're not hollow, are they? So how do you get candles in?

[Patty]

My most recent painting doorknobs story happened two weeks ago an hour before my siblings and their families were due for Thanksgiving dinner. I hear a noise out in the garage and go out to find my husband with his electric sander sanding the nicks out of my bread board. He came in awhile later covered in dust and said it probably wasn't the best time to start that project. You think? Lol. After 31 years of marriage I've learned to not plan on him for any of my projects on party day because he has enough of his own, whether they are necessary or not that particular day. If anyone ever asks you if people grow out of ADD as they get older, the answer is no! He's a keeper though :) loved the 'luminaries'!

[RocketGrl]

Doorknob painting, love the name. Seriously, my Steve can find more (useless-to-me) stuff to do when I need his help in the hour before company arrives.I'll never quite get why the garage must be reorganized and the oil changed for the guests. I'd prefer to have clothes picked up and the floor vacuumed. My obsession is that the cat box must be emptied in the last 30 minutes prior to guest arrival.

Yes, recipes please.

Alexicographer: me too. I want to return to a clean home. Alive.

Boobies? I saw an iced condom tip until I scrolled down to see the second pic. Blushing now.

[ivfcycler]

oh my, i was going to do the ice um, things, with my in-laws but i guess i'd better test my balloons first!

(and DJH commenter: metal chicken link is TO DIE FOR.)

[Jen]

Rice, lentil bacon - recipe please! And a 'how to' on ice-boobies!

[Alchemilla]

If you ever feel like sharing, I too would love to know why - and how, come to that - you made the ice boobs. Is it simply a form of ice sculpture or does one insert a light (in this instance, a pink light, obviously) of some sort? Flashing ice boobs - yay!

Also, you must have a huuuuuuuge

... freezer.

[Nancy]

Happy Birthday Steve! You have an amazing wife!! Enjoy your ice boobies! (teehee)

[Sandra]

So I was giggling throughout the post, and then I got to the ice tits... now I am openly weeping with laughter at my desk.

Thanks. Have a fantastic day.

[Annette]

Why do I even ask?! Again, google is my friend: http://chuck-does-art.blogspot.de/2010/12/diy-waterballoon-ice-candle-holders.html
Actually, they look pretty spectacular and decidedly un-nipply.
Oh, and as data point n+2: we've had the "the garage must be re-arranged instanter" scenario, too. On Thanksgiving Day, as I recall.

[ttg]

I am with Snick, although II have always thought Steve remarkably had that George Clooney thing going... and then to have a wife who can make those fabulous ice boobies... wow... it is no wonder your children are so damn gifted and hilarous.

Now cough-up those recipes, sister. Noelle totally busted you for withholding mention of the most interesting sounding dish of the evening...

Thank you for the joyful writing. My son's IEP is in a few hours, I am a wreck, and I came here to laugh again and read the fun comments. What the hell would I do without you clever, witty people? Monty Burns... only you, Julia...

Tree Town Gal

[Robyn]

Bwahhahahaha! I adore this blog for so many reasons! Thank you, my dear!

[Ashley]

Recipe please for lentil rice with bacon!

My husband is most definitely a doorknob painter. And not just when people are coming over, it's an everyday thing. We have an hour to finish dinner, eat, and get the kids bathed and ready for bed. So he decides its a really good time to hang the shelves I've been asking him to hang for months. Or organize the basement and almost always get stung by something. Drives me crazy!

[Maryjean]

I can't believe that my husband has so much company in his quest to paint doorknobs. In our household the other downside (besides my shrieking) to this activity is that he's usually the main chef for dinner parties. Yes, he's busy painting doorknobs while the main course sits uncooked. We just give the guests lots of wine and call it an evening.

I echo an earlier commenter who said the secret to planking salmon is to soak the plank for a good long time beforehand.

[MJ]

So glad to have the report on your party - you made me laugh out loud at the office. It sounds like a wonderful evening. I too am wondering how icy balloons turn into luminaria.

[MomQueenBee]

So my Husband's own moment of doorknob painting occurred when I had just unexpectedly given birth. (Well, not totally unexpectedly as we'd known it would be happening for 8 months, just not that it would happen that day.) He left me in the hospital, drugged and preeclamptic, to go back home and paint the INSIDE OF THE CLOSET in the baby's room. It's a wonder I'm not a single mother today.

[Alexa]

Scott's specialty is closets, which he tackles whenever I have a meltdown about the state of the apartment. Meltdown is usually precipitated by piles of junk mail or laundry or cat hair tumbleweeds, NOT scandalously disorganized shoe-storage, but oh well. It's something.

We really must get together again, by the way. I am eager to get your recipe for ash-grilled salmon...

[Tine]

Add me to the clamoring chorus of people who want the wild rice/lentil/bacon recipe. And the ceviche! (Although I do remember a ceviche recipe on your food blog...is it that one?)

My hubs is a doorknob painter, too. He only does it when his own (elderly, neurotic, fragile) parents are coming to stay with us, though. 30 minutes before they're due, he ALWAYS needs to "make a quick run to Home Depot." (*facepalm*)

[SarahB]

Doorknob painting has got to be a guy thing. For us it's either having people over--or worse, when we need to get out the door. I run to change or use the bathroom and say "x, y, and z needs to happen before we can leave," and I come out to find him doing "q" with y and z still left! And he wonders why I get mad!

Lentils, bacon, and wild rice, please?

[Christy]

I guess we're starting to see a trend here with doorknob painting, huh? Julia, you are charming and I love this community of commenters!

[Cris]

Tree Town Gal - good luck with the IEP! Don't they just suck?

Julia - love love love - well, everything!

[Heidi]

Alexicographer: "Your breasts are beautiful" Hahahahaha! However I too saw a condom. I'm looking forward to understand how they were meant to work.

Chocolate milk or not, how wonderful that you have a son who slips his arm around you.

[Heidi]

AND... Am I the only person who had to google Monty Burns? Yeah, thought so.