Look Who is Coming to Dinner!

Look Who’s Coming to Dinner

I have written before about this cookbook and how it makes fun of the pretentious while delivering some really good recipes.  On looking through it today for some inspiration I came across this:

This picture accompanied the suggestion that we assemble a nightmare selection of guests for a party.  Thinking about this, my suggestion is:

• Film star or celebrity
• Woman CEO of a major company
• A rising young author- female to balance the gender
• Repertory actor
• Accountant
• Backbencher (for those who don’t know this is a member of the parliament who doesn’t hold a Ministerial portfolio)

The actor, the writer and the star will no doubt have had to starve at times while making their fortune and the rep actor probably is still starving.  So they will be reasonably easy to please.  No doubt the  career woman has” had to fight tooth and claw to establish herself in a man’s world and she’s nobody’s fool” and the accountant probably has an ulcer or is diabetic because of the stresses and strains of his chosen profession.  And the Backbencher is used to being fawned over and eating at Bellamy’s (or the equivalent of the restaurant in the seat of government) so he is likely to be more demanding.

So what would you serve this nightmare group?  Our author suggests two menus but for these disparate and perhaps difficult people I would serve:

Chilled cucumber soup because they would be so busy talking and trying to impress each other that a hot starter would soon get cold.
Roast New Zealand lamb a la Jamie Oliver, French green beans and a large green salad
For dessert, Pavlova (from the bakery of course) with fresh fruit and cream*
Followed by brandy or a liquor of their choice, freshly brewed coffee, cheese selection and crackers.

Hopefully, this will impress the career woman, the accountant and the Backbencher and totally ‘blow the socks off ” the other three.

Image via wikipedia

*Pavlova is a dessert with a meringue base, topped with fresh fruit and fresh cream.  It is the subject of hot arguments between New Zealanders and Australians as to which of them first introduced this dessert.  But we all agree that a well-made Pav takes a lot of beating- excuse the pun!

Then hopefully, they would all make their way home having been thoroughly entertained by the other guests and well fed by me.  Leaving me to clear the table and do the dishes and all those other follow-up chores after a party.

And then hopefully, the next day they will tell their friends –

“I went to a marvellous party,
I must say the fun was intense,
We all had to do
What the people we knew
Would be doing a hundred years hence…”
From I went to a Marvellous Party, 
Sir Noel Coward

JB Looking very pleased with herself afer a successful
dinner party.
Wellington, September 22 ,2022

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