Eva texted me on Saturday afternoon to say she was done with everything she needed to do for her Hannukah party, except for to fry the latkes, which needed to be done closer to the time that people would be eating them.
Mad props to Eva. I am much the same way when it comes to hosting people - psychotically organized, thinking I'm going to run out of time, but then finishing with so much time to spare as I get bored and starting taking things too far like creating signature drinks and then writing out the recipes in haiku. (This actually happened.)
So I'd like to share stories of people who are close to me (very close to me...as in, down the hallway) who do not perhaps share this OCD disposition. (That's obsessive-compulsive disorder for those of you fortunate as to not have to know what this means.)
1. Shane and I co-hosted Thanksgiving. Now granted, we have a tiny kitchen, and we did make a plan together about who would be doing what, when, so I take at least partial responsibility for not seeing the flaws in our plan. (I also adore Shane, lest he read this and think that I'm not loving on him.) As people started arriving the things I had remaining to do were: A) take turkey out of oven, B) add pan-drippings to pre-made gravy base, and C) mash the already boiled potatoes. Shane's to-do list at that same time included: A) fry pecan fritters individually and B) make sweet potato biscuits. Which perhaps would have been fine except for the fact that said biscuits required rolling out and baking 3 separate sheets to accommodate them all. Anyone who has ever seen a New York apartment (not on Park Ave or Central Park West) may perhaps realize that on a good day there isn't much room to roll things out, much less to put 3 hot baking sheets once out of the oven, and this is Thanksgiving, where every surface is already claimed by ready-made delights and dirty dishes (and a friggin' roasting pan w/ turkey), and Shane is cooking fritters on 2 burners, and every chair is already claimed by hungry guests. So yeah, we ate a little late, and I had to repress the urge to pick at my nails nonstop during the final hour of prep. Once we actually sat down to eat we had to put the dirty roasting pan in my bedroom for lack of any other surface area to keep it. But it all sure was delicious!
2) Heather was having people over for brunch this past Sunday and enlisted my help. I knew we were in trouble when she texted me at 11pm on Saturday night to ask where she could get fresh crab. Despite the fact that NYC never sleeps, the purveyors of fresh crab do sleep between 11pm Saturday night and 11am Sunday morning when guests are expected. I knew we were in bigger trouble when by 9:45am Sunday she was just getting in the shower and hadn't gone shopping yet. So I went and got a bagel, and texted the couple of people I had coming about not bothering to arrive before noon. But, again, when it all worked out (12:30pm) it all sure was delicious!
So, I guess the moral of the story is...hosting parties with anyone other than Eva is bad for my manicure? I don't know how compelling that is, but there you go.
Cheers,
P
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