Birthday party hats

“I can make a hat out of a paper napkin. You start with a square.”

“No you don’t! You need a rectangle.”


I looked on in disbelief as first Ross then Louise started to fold their napkins into party hats. I have no idea how to make a party hat or anything else for that matter out of a paper napkin. (I can do a great octopus out of a straw paper though.)


We had finished a fantastic meal of chicken with 40 cloves of garlic, smashed potatoes with sour cream and parm and peas with pearl onions. Not to mention the Greek lemon soup to start. Louise had outdone herself again. Out of 6 friends, 3 of us have birthdays within days of each other. 2 others are a mere few weeks ahead. This year we all got together to celebrate.


As each hat was smoothed and folded, they were passed around the table until we all wore tiny blue “Happy Birthday” paper hats perched precariously on our heads. As we laughed over the silliness we had to keep adjusting our chapeaus to keep them from falling off. It felt good to laugh.

Of course there is a maverick in every crowd.

I would much rather have a get-together than a gift any day. Time is the one thing we can offer each other that costs nothing but is worth everything. Thanks you guys for making my birthday, no, our birthdays special. You are special and I treasure our friendship!

Staycation with Friends

Once in a while I have out-of-state guests come to the mountain. It is always a highlight when you live far from everybody and everything. I love having people in my house. (Hmmm, maybe I am a frustrated innkeeper.) This week I have friends here from Minnesota. I have known Cindy for close to 10 years.

In an effort to entertain them, I have planned their time to the hilt.

We have eaten home-cooked Indian food; have been shopping in cute boutiques; lunching at outdoor restaurants in quaint river towns;

saw the Manhattan skyline from the speedboat the Beast and even took in a Broadway show.


I have dragged Cindy to visit other friends and made her schlep across the bridge from Lambertville, NJ to New Hope, PA in the almost pouring rain. (Thank you Peter for driving us back to our car.) The only place we have not been is to the shore and that is simply too far and crowded in August.

While Cindy and I have had time to talk about life, love and the pursuit of happiness; her daughter has been able to re-connect with friends she has not seen in two years. It has been wonderful and exhausting for everyone.

How are you spending your staycation?

There but for the grace of God

I got an email from my friend Howard yesterday. He had fallen on some black ice while clearing off his Jeep. It was a crappy morning and he did not want to take out the good car that was parked nice and dry in the garage. He cleaned off the snow and ice from the front of the vehicle then walked around the side to do the back. On the way, he slipped and his feet flew out from under him. He fell flat on his back on the blacktopped driveway. He hit his elbow, hip and smacked his head. He immediately drove himself to the Emergency Room in Morristown where they stitched up his elbow, X-rayed the rest and sent him home.

Two weeks later, he started to lose his words and his right foot was dragging. He called his doctor, went back to the hospital and had brain surgery the next day. Brain surgery- the scariest of surgeries. He had a Subdural Hematoma. He said he had no headache. No symptoms. After the surgery the bleeding did not stop, so they had to go back in again to find the cause. It could have been much, much worse.

After 2 surgeries and a stay at a Rehab center, he is now home. I spoke to him today and he sounds normal. His voice is strong. He is tired, but on the mend.

He told me of the misery of those in the hospital and in rehab--the pain and suffering that happens around us that we do not know. While in the hospital he prayed for all those suffering in the world. He said it was a wake-up call. "Your life can change in an instant. We should all be thankful for what we have."

In this Easter season let us hold up to the light all who suffer. As I sit down with my guests for Easter dinner, I will pray for Howard who may be having Easter lunch at a diner, but is alive and well enough to go out-even for a short distance. God Bless.

Tonka

I had been in the flatland for Thanksgiving. I walked in the house to hear the phone ringing. I dashed up the stairs leaving my luggage in the basement.

“Hello”

“Hi B, it’s D. Do you want a cat?”

“No, I already have 3. What cat?”

It was the usual convoluted story. Her friend Lisa’s neighbor had noticed a little cat huddled in a window well of their apartment building. It had been there a few days. It was November. It was cold. She called Lisa. Lisa called D. D had worked at the local animal shelter and still knew someone there. But first they took the cat to the local pet superstore for their adoption weekend. Neither one of them could have another cat. The store could not keep the cat overnight.

“ We just need some place to keep it overnight.”

“OK. Come on over.”

“We are on our way.”

I had a sinking feeling. I am a sucker and a softie. I knew the minute I saw it; it would end up living here. I vowed to be tough.

When they came in with the carrier and opened it in the basement the little cat popped out and went right to the litter boxes. He then walked around the basement sniffing invisible and random spots.

I could not leave him in the basement; the other cats needed to get to the litter boxes. We gathered him up and put him upstairs in the studio. The resident cats pawed at the door. They sniffed and howled at the door. The little one wolfed down some food, used the litter again and hid under the loom his back to the door although his ears would flicker at the din going on.

That was 2 years ago this past Thanksgiving.

All the beasties get along now and Tonka has turned into a sweetie. He is still timid and will hide if someone else comes in the house so you will not see him until second or third day of your visit.

There isn’t enough room in the oven

I have been listening to food talk for weeks. The menu options for Thanksgiving have swirled around my office, my house, even my car.

“Roasted brussels sprouts or steamed; should we have rolls or not; there isn’t enough room in the oven for roasting fennel; I tried something new; No green beans this year; my son wants fettucine alfredo; my sister is serving quail and pheasant instead of turkey.”

All this, and I am not cooking. I love to cook and I entertain a lot, but not at Thanksgiving. I have a close group of friends and I know their extended families well. I am blessed to be invited to someone’s house every year.

This Thanksgiving I spent with the Malkins. The food was excellent, the wine free-flowing, the company congenial (maybe a result of the wine…) and the kids well-behaved. I was the happy recipient of the most amazing soup with small floating raviolis to take home. I left as stuffed as the bird. On the ride home I listened to the first of many Christmas songs on my ipod. Happy sigh.

The holidays are upon us.

Wine tasting

I walked up to the door, a half an hour late to the party, hoping my offering was still cold enough. It had taken me over an hour to get there. We were 9 people gathered at a friend’s house to celebrate the last days of summer and taste wine. Planned months in advance we were to taste Sauvignon Blanc, a perfect summer sipper. (Never mind that the temperature was to dip into the 40s.) Everyone was to bring a bottle. I had dashed to the wine shop in the morning and agonized over the selection not knowing what to pick. I knew I wanted a NZ wine from Marlborough. In the end, I randomly picked. It had a funny label.

The host relieved me of the wine as soon as I came in and taped a piece of paper with a number to the bottle, covering the label. We were handed pencils and a scoring sheet. Our wine glasses had our names on paper skirts.

We tried the first wine and looked nervously at our score cards. We were to rate each wine according to color, nose, legs, 1st taste, finish and an overall rating. The scale was 1-5: 1 was rot gut and 5 was melt in your mouth. We peered, sniffed, swirled, swished and sipped. What we found was that everyone’s palate is different. Something that I found awful, someone else liked. It is totally subjective.

There were 6 wines. I’ll skip ahead.

The favorite wine was a NZ 2006 Monkey Bay (the one I brought-wahoo.). The 2nd was a Francis Coppola 2005 Yellow label. There were 2 Australian wines, another New Zealand, and a Chilean. Some people had read up and made their selection based on reviews, while others picked theirs because the host and hostess are movie buffs. As I mentioned I liked the label.
We talked about trying Rieslings next time or Syrahs. It was a fun evening and we all learned something, laughed a lot, bluffed our way through the herbaceous versus fruity nose and made jokes about stubble on the legs as they were not smooth enough.

Have you hosted a tasting? How did you do yours?

Manage Expectations

Manage expectations, not disappointment. This is something my former boss and good friend Marion always used to say. And it is true. I always try to do it. But this time, it didn't work.

The ad in the paper said “Come to Greece this weekend!” Festival starts Friday night at 5 and goes through Sunday. I checked the schedule. It looked there was a lot happening on Saturday—folk dancing, music, food, crafts, rides for the kids. I called my friend Louise, “You guys wanna come up this weekend? There is a Greek festival.” “Come on Saturday. We’ll go over for lunch.”

They drove for an hour and a half.

As we went into town, we excitedly talked about all of our favorite Greek food. I wanted a Gyro. I had missed out on them at the fair. We guessed what might be available: Souvalaki, or dolma, mousakka, spanikopita, probably baklava. My friends met years ago folk dancing, so there was also some hope that there might be audience participation in the folk dancing. WE were ready.

As I got near the festival location, there was no traffic. Huh. But there was a cop standing out by the street; I image for crowd control???? As I pulled into the lot, I saw it was almost empty. Uh-oh. What the…There were very few people there. There was tinny music coming from somewhere. The food wasn’t ready yet. There were 2 whole lambs turning on spits. The only thing coming out of the kitchen was a spinach pie and a cheese pie. There were 2 big tents with tables and lots and lots of chairs. No dancers, no live music, no crafts, not even a donkey.

We left and went to a diner for a Greek lunch. (The local diner has fantastic stuffed grape leaves.) We decided to return to the festival after lunch and hopefully they would have had time to get it together. When we went back at 3, there were now maybe 10 people there, a guy playing a lyre, and 1 table with T-shirts on it. We hung around for about 15 minutes feeling awkward. There was no reason to stay.

Remember that they drove for an hour and a half?

Gad. What to do? What to do? I needed an alternate plan and I need it quick.

I started to drive to the next town over the mountain. It is a quaint little hamlet with a lovely main street. We were all complaining about how dreadful the festival was. Then a brainstorm! (A little scary since the festival was my brainstorm too.) Up the road a ways was a winery and they had never been. So we ended up whiling away the afternoon sampling wine, then buying a bottle to share. We sat there with lots of other people (Greek festival refugees?) and listened to live music for several hours. Then we went out to dinner with more friends and ended up eating Starwberries Romanov on a candlelit deck laughing about the day's events.

So while I was managing disappointment about the festival, the weather was superb, friendships were still firm, and the winery a hit! Whew! They may even come back for a visit. There is an apple festival coming up in the fall. It's huge, I have been there before. Really.