Eastern Hospitality

In Ripon, I tried really hard to be the perfect hostess. Looking back on our early attempts at entertaining, I admit they were far from stellar. I am convinced that one of Craig’s friends is still single because I presented to him a rather sullied picture of romantic bliss. Every time he came to visit us, I messed up one of the meals. After a while, the three of us tried the local restaurants when he visited instead.

Craig and I tried “having people over for dinner” too, but it is easy to dwell on a few early failures. I remember the time that my “leave all day” crock pot main dish was done four hours early. Cooling it down and reheating it made it dry. Another time I didn’t thaw salmon fillets adequately before cooking. They were appealingly broiled on the outside, but slightly gelatinous in the middle.

Moving to a new place restarted our social life. We don’t worry about the embarrassing thing I did at a party last year, or wonder if our friends resent us not reciprocating their last dinner invitation. We were sad to leave old friends, but looked forward to making new ones. One thing we resolve to do in Lexington is entertain more often.

We live far away from family and many friends, now, so houseguests are inevitable. A main advantage to the house we chose was a separate floor for guests—an upstairs spare bedroom and bathroom. I imagine developing hostess skills that rival Craig’s Cousin Bonnie, the best hostess I’ve ever met. Though she lives in a tiny town in the uppermost corner of North Dakota, we find excuses to visit her often. She regales us splendidly with amazing food, and she and her husband Dennis are two of the best conversationalists we know. I tried to analyze Bonnie’s welcoming home so I could capture a similar atmosphere, trying to recall everything down to the guest soaps in the bathroom.

When I was little, my mom obsessively cleaned the entire house before company came. Even rooms and corners that would remain closed to our guests did not escape her scrutiny.

“People will just mess it up again, and we’ll have to clean twice as hard when they leave,” I reasoned, irritated at having to help. “Can’t we have them over to a messy house and just clean up after them?”

I felt that same compulsion to clean the house before we welcomed my mom to Lexington in November. Craig watched me turn circles on the carpet, going over everything with a duster. “It’s just housework,” he said. “It’s no reason to get all stressed out!”

“Guests,” I informed him through clenched teeth, “base their entire concept of us on what they see when they stay here. If they don’t see a clean house, a pantry stocked with food they like, and meals that are thoughtfully, if not perfectly, cooked, they will define us by those standards. I will not have a guest of mine think that we live like pigs!”

Thankfully, my mother’s visit went off without any major embarrassments. The one thing I forgot was to buy antibacterial hand soap, which we don’t use because of allergies. Bonnie would have remembered that Mom likes hand soap, I chided myself. Still, it’s not a huge faux pas.

We had our first informal dinner party in Lexington last Sunday. It was, thrillingly, a success. I am not as detail oriented as Martha Stewart or as photogenic as Rachael Ray, but I managed to feed eight people in my house without a major mishap. We provided the setting and the main dish, and others filled out the rest of the meal. Everything went well together, everyone liked the food, and there were no uncomfortable lulls in the conversation.

I usually think that time passes slowly. However, it seems to race when I look at the calendar and realize that the party date I set two weeks ago is two days away. I spent at least an hour that Friday evening poring over a cookbook. It’s hard to select something that everyone likes. Craig and I can’t derive any inspiration from our respective cultures. My German ancestors, farming for generations in the Midwest, thrived and grew fat on that great Middle American staple: the casserole. As long as it was made in one dish and had a lot of cream of mushroom soup in it, das gut. Craig is German and Norwegian, and both have traditional dishes made of dough drenched in butter. Even lutefisk, the dreaded fish soaked in lye, is served covered in butter because the drying and soaking makes it bland.

Lutefisk is like eating a pat of butter, my husband tells me. I’ve been six inches away from a plate of lutefisk and didn’t have the guts to put some in my mouth. I prodded it with a fork and it wobbled at me. It was the exact texture and consistency of jello. I couldn't go any further.

“The most important thing is to make something that no one has heard of before,” admonished Craig. “That way, if you mess it up they’ll just assume they don’t like the dish. They won’t know it’s badly prepared!”

“Hmm… Do we have a cookbook of Estonian food?” I wondered.

“Just cook chicken. It’s impossible to mess up a chicken,” he soothed me.

“Yes you can. It can be raw in the middle and make people sick. It could overcook and get dry. It could be over seasoned and offend the finicky, or overly bland to disappoint the epicurean. Or, worst of all, I could pick something that doesn’t go well with anything that other people bring.”

“What are other people bringing?” he asked.

“I don’t know.” I was nervous. Our normal weeknight meals don’t actually amount to cooking. Our food started out passable, but it keeps getting worse with every year of marriage. I work full time and don’t feel like devoting more than a few brain cells to planning meals. I feel waves of guilt when a girlfriend tells of slaving in the kitchen for hours only to have her husband turn up his nose at the loving offering. I don’t do “slaving.”

Craig and I walk in the door between 5 and 6 every evening. We get cranky if dinner isn’t on the table ten minutes later. What I lack in creativity I make up for in promptness. I go immediately to the cupboard and set two dinner plates out on the counter. Onto them go servings of meat, usually chicken or fish that I already cooked, and a rice or potato dish also made ahead of time. I complete the ensemble with fresh or frozen vegetables and heat the plates in the microwave in turn. My other successful made-ahead meal is a large pot of soup. If I run out of food to fix, my pantry is stocked with canned soup and my freezer always has a low-fat frozen dinner to fill the void. We don’t eat out every night like some two-job couples our age, but neither are we gourmands at home.

I finally hit on an easy main dish to fix: chicken marinated in Italian dressing and baked in bread crumbs. I was overly vigilant about cooking time. My worst dinner fear is that someone will get sick after eating at our house. I'd rather that people think that I have no concept of food presentation (because I don't) than think that my food was responsible for their illness. A few of the breasts were hacked apart to check for pink in the center. I spooned these into the serving dish first, placing the whole breasts on top to hide the choppy parts.

So what if the chicken looks a little strange, I reasoned. My glasses sparkled rosily on the table, filled with the one thing I do well, entertaining-wise. I make an excellent strawberry lemonade. It always attracts honest praise, and I am flattered that people are so impressed. It's made of strawberries (the frozen dessert variety) stirred into lemonade (also frozen, from concentrate). I defy even Red Robin, a favorite restaurant of ours, to serve a better beverage.

Seconds were passed around, we shared an unbelievable layered chocolate dessert, and soon Craig and I were standing in the kitchen finishing up the lemonade after the last couple left. When the party ended, I realized that it went very well and I should have taken more time to enjoy it. It’s easy to get so wrapped up in preparation that you miss the event itself. C.S. Lewis captured this idea, though I don’t think he ever donned an apron and swilled a chicken breast in bread crumbs. He said that it is impossible to contemplate the enjoyed. When one's mind is active, dwelling on the immediacy of the moment and what needs to be done, one loses the capacity to feel the associated emotions. The human brain only has so much room for thoughts and feelings, and will often lose sight of one in favor of the other. Focusing on preparing dinner and ensuring everyone’s needs were met had absorbed my time all afternoon. Next time I plan to take more time to enjoy myself.

“Why clean house? Next time, just take all of the household clutter, put it in the bathtub, and close the curtain. That way, guests can enjoy our clean house and we don’t actually have to put anything away!” suggested Craig.

“I’d rather try lutefisk,” I replied.

Now That's Cold!

Last January a comet was visible in the California predawn sky from 4 a.m. to 5 a.m. Craig woke me up early one weekend to see it. In a record cold snap for the Central Valley, temperatures had plummeted to the low twenties. We dressed warmly, but when we slipped out the door the cold make me suck in a quick breath. I wound my scarf around my nose and pushed my hands into my gloves as we trudged out to the end of our street. The freeway left enough open sky that we thought we should catch a glimpse, and a picture if we could fumble with the camera bag through our gloves. I paced back and forth as Craig strained his eyes toward the east. Our breath, normally barely visible, made large swirling clouds and coated the insides of our scarves with moisture. We stayed out until well after sunrise and the comet never appeared. I marveled at the way the cold insinuated itself into cracks of my clothing: the cuffs around my wrists, the overlap at the waist, my ankles. Next year, it’ll be cold like this all the time, I thought, wondering how it would affect me.

“There is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothes,” Craig quotes the old Norwegian saying to me often.

“I suppose the people who are forced to eat lutefisk all winter because it’s too cold to gather fresh food should know,” I retort. On the whole, I have found the saying to be true. In a cold climate, one needs to put more thought into proper clothing. I still forget sometimes and carry my coat over my arm as I’m descending the stairs to leave work. Then the cold wave hits me as I enter the foyer, and I juggle the stuff in my arms so I can put my coat on. Even the thirty second walk to my car would be uncomfortable without it.

How much clothing is appropriate for cold weather? This question still plagues mothers everywhere. Gloves and hats are not really necessary in California. They go in and out of fashion, and if they are “out,” then students will not wear them for any price. Students arrive at school every morning fresh from a daily argument, insisting that their clothing is perfectly appropriate and they would be consigned to geekdom if they wore a single stitch more. They pay a high price for their audacity, huddling together in forlorn, miserable groups during outdoor breaks. Then they’ll come inside at the bell to whine that the classroom is not warm enough for winter weather. No rebuttal was necessary for me last year. I’d just point at their feet to silence any complaints. With morning temperatures around forty degrees, it is considered rebellious for teenagers to wear flip flops to school.

Californians comment on how cold it is, and complain about the inconvenience of forty degrees just as much as Kentuckians exclaim over ten degrees. On a California winter morning, a layer of frost has collected on car windows, and hurried businessmen take out their credit cards to scrape it off because they haven’t bothered to buy an ice scraper. I’ve even heard of one bright soul who would clear his car of ice by pouring warm water on his windows. This scheme could only be dreamed up in California. Kentuckians know that when cold glass warms too quickly, it cracks. I imagine this man visiting relatives in a colder area and herding them outside to see his failsafe method for clearing windows. He dramatically pours the water, expecting a chorus of ooh’s and ahh’s, perhaps even a suggestion that he quit his job and patent a warm-water car sprayer. Instead, his family covers their eyes and hits the ground as the windshield shatters.

Kentucky cars parked outside have a veneer of ice, not frost, and icicles form on the front grilles and stay all day. On the road, it looks like the cars drive by with white faces and long, pointy teeth. I am grateful to have a garage. Our electric opener sticks in the cold weather, but it’s better than contending with early morning battery trouble and doors that are frozen shut. I marvel that many houses here have no garages, or only a single stall. Californians love garages, but don’t know what to do with them. They may have four stalls, but cars are parked outside because the garage is stuffed with junk. If a Kentuckian is fortunate enough to have a garage, it is definitely put to good use.

I bought a thermometer last week, tiring at last of checking weather.com every time I wanted to know how cold it was. I walked up the aisle at Lowe’s, selecting a plain digital model that suctions onto a window. On Sunday I checked the temperature as we headed to church.

“It’s 48 degrees outside! That’s not so bad,” I piped, selecting a coat.

Craig sidled up and peered at the digital screen. “That’s 4.8 degrees.”

I moved closer, perceiving that there was, indeed, a decimal. I frowned. “Do people still go out when it’s this cold, or do they just stay inside all day and stare at their thermometers? Maybe next year we’ll want a spiffier model that comes with Celsius converter, barometer, and rain gauge.”

“Yes, we can still leave the house. It’ll be the first time you’ve felt that kind of cold since you were little,” Craig said.

As we drove through our neighborhood, I noticed a fresh sprinkling of large crystals on the street. I’ve come to recognize them as salt, not snow, though at first they looked like the result of a flash hailstorm. The cars gradually crush the crystals, forming lacy patterns on the roads. It adds to the “winter wonderland” ambiance just as much as it keeps the roads from icing over.

Crossing the parking lot, I pushed my hands into my coat pockets. Exposed skin hurts at such low temperatures. My nose began to throb as if it had been hit. I slapped Craig on the arm, urging him to walk faster. My legs felt the cold air that bit through my pants.

The next time a comet appears, on some cold January day, I’ll be ready to throw on my heavy coat and scarf and trudge outside to see it. I’ll remember last year and wonder how I ever thought 20 degrees was cold.