agua de jamaica

So we had a dinner party.
For now, this will have to stand in for my fulfillment of the salon challenge. And by stand in, I mean hold its place until I can follow my own rules, which I didn't quite.


My friend Jen and I made this dinner together, and fifteen minutes before everyone arrived, when I fully realized that we only had about half the food completed, I took a swig of my pre-guest arrival drink, and I asked Jen, "Will I ever learn to do this better? More efficiently? On time?" She answered that where would be the rush in that?

Last year we did a similar dinner party together, a benefit for the school like this one. That day was a bit of a mess, and by the moments before everyone arrived, we were actually sprinting through the kitchen. This time we didn't sprint, but I certainly lost a fair amount of hope, and I accepted the fact that dinner, in my hands, will almost always be later than intended.  Lucky for all of our guests, Jen's hands were involved too, and so they didn't go hungry for too long.




As soon as I let go of any hope of keeping it together, of course I started to have a much better night. Our intent was a Mexican feast, and all night we pressed tortillas and squeezed limes. And because the flavors might just come back into my mouth as a recount the menu to you, I will do my best to reconstruct the affair. Ready? Or rather, should I say, hungry?

We started out with rhubarb margaritas and chili lime popcorn. The margaritas, entirely responsible for my next day headache, were made with rhubarb ginger syrup.  They were worth the headache. For the popcorn, I melted butter, and whisked it together with lime juice, salt, and chili powder. That whole delicious mess went on the popcorn.

Then there was soup, a fish soup mostly from Diana Kennedy that was made from chicken broth, vegetables, and fish that I had brought back with me from Maine the day before. We floated little circles of lime in each bowl, a trick that I will be sure to repeat again.

And then there were pork tacos, but I've already told you about those. That time turned out to be practice for this time, and they were just as delicious. We pressed corn tortillas as we constructed the tacos. And then there was shredded pork, and radish and white turnip salad, queso fresco, creme fraiche, and guacamole.



Then there was salad, and because all the produce for the whole dinner was from Jen's farm, this was no slouch of a salad. She and her husband grow magical lettuces. I'll leave it at that.


Then, because we hadn't had enough homemade tortillas, we made more, and we topped them with swiss chard and garlic scapes, then Oaxaca cheese, a bean and corn salsa, and a fried egg.

 This was my favorite course to look at, but I was too full to clean my plate.

 
Then finally there was flan, which almost wasn't at all.  I burned the caramel twice, and then I had to send Joey out to buy more sugar. I had never made flan, and as we coated the pan in caramel, I couldn't figure out how this would actually work or why it would soften into the sweet brown liquid I knew it should. We stuck that custard in a water bath and said a prayer. And although we could have put it into little individual ramekins, I had the image stuck in my head of Penelope Cruz turning over a big flan in Volver, a move I found so inspiring and deeply sexy that I thought it needed to be attempted. If you haven't seen that movie, see it just for that moment. You'll like the rest too.

When we went to overturn that flan, Penelope Cruz was nowhere to be seen. Instead, it slid right out of the pan without turning over, but we cheered anyway because it was flan despite our failings.

 To drink through the night we had cheap Mexican Beer (I'm partial to Tecate in a can), and agua de jamaica, or, if you don't want to be saucy about it, hibiscus tea. I've had a big beautiful jar of dried hibiscus that Jen brought me back from her last trip to Mexico, and the last of those precious flowers went into our drink.

Again, absolutely worth it.

Before you go lamenting the fact that you have no friend just returned from Mexico bearing dried hibiscus, I'll tell you that it's not so hard to find. Some bulk herb sections in the store will have them, and if not, the online marketplace will help you out. In a pinch, however, a few Celestial Seasonings red zinger tea bags will do the trick here.

Agua de jamaica is sweet and sour, dark red and wonderful, and exactly what you need in your refrigerator on the hottest of days. That, and some cheap Mexican beer.


Agua de Jamaica

adapted from Diana Kennedy, The Essential Cuisines of Mexico

2/3 cup dried hibiscus flowers
4 cups water
1/3 cup sugar, or more to taste
1/4 cup fresh lime juice

Combine the hibiscus and 3 cups of the water in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Let the mixture boil for 5 minutes.  Remove from heat. Stir in the sugar and the remaining water, cover, and let sit for 4 hours. Strain out the hibiscus flours and add the lime juice. Adjust sweetness to taste.
Agua de jamaica can also be topped off with a little bubbly water if you prefer.

Because this is functioning as my salon challenge until I get to the real one, it's a perfect time to tell me about your dinner party! Anyone take the challenge out there?

the salon challenge

The urge to invite people to dinner has hit me in full force. I don't just mean to dinner. I mean TO DINNER.
That's right, it's been a year, but I'm done hibernating, and the kitchen has moved, and I still don't have matching plates but that's okay, and yes,
it's time for a salon challenge.
I worked at the first farmers market of the season today, and everyone was talking to everyone else. You'd think people came for the spinach, but I think that they came for the conversation.  And over and over, people kept saying, "whoa. it's been a long winter.  it is nice to be out." There were people running at each other over the broad expanse of market, arms outstretched, and you'd think that we'd been snowed in all winter.
You would, after all, be right.
I started this salon challenge a ways back after I heard this essay.  I couldn't stop thinking about it, and I dreamed of becoming someone who connected other people to each other, who created moments where people could sit face to face and talk and eat, someone who was (and I'll use this word, because this is my word of the day) BRAVE enough to sit back and let it happen, to invite people who might say no, to feed people imperfect food, to sit still and calm through long silences, and to handle it with grace or not but be okay with it either way. Even more, I wanted to feel that bringing people together could change the world and peoples lives, that I could do a little bit of what Jim Haynes did in my very own kitchen.  I took his essay as a challenge, and I wanted to follow through.
And of course, I love a good dinner party.
So let's get this party started again.
The only rule is that you have to invite people to dinner that you do not know. And by "do not know," I mean only know a little, wanting to know more, never met, or whatever works for you.  It needs to be different than a regular dinner, but again, do what works.  Here's the layout of the rules and themes past, as well as a few other tidbits.  And the theme for this challenge is.....
color!
Organize your menu around color, that's it.  Serve your courses in a rainbow or an entirely purple meal, just let color guide you.  You have until the end of June, so that gives us all enough time to get BRAVE, send out some invitations, and plan a menu.
There, I've done it! There's the challenge.  Questions? Anxieties? Hoorays? Chime in here. Tell us all if you're taking the challenge and then check back in and we'll swap stories. I really do think that a few more dinner parties can change everything--I know they have around here.

cooking with jen

I finally did my salon challenge. I cooked with my friend, Jen.

In the midst of all of the craziness, we cooked together for most of the day. Both of our lives are a little fast paced at the moment, and although I wasn't sure how it would all work out, it ended up being the most amazing time out from it all.


I didn't answer the phone or check my email. I just chopped and kneaded and stirred.
And in the end there was dinner.

This dinner party was a little different from the others so far. As a benefit for the girls' school, mothers bought seats for this one. And it was exactly that, a table full of mothers.

We ate and talked late into the night. With the most astounding assortment of produce from Jen's farm, local meat and cheeses, and blueberry wine concocted by Jen and her husband Pete.

I'll be honest- we weren't as quite prepared as we planned to be. For the last hour, we were actually running around the kitchen at a sprint. But with four hands to do the work, I stayed much calmer than I probably should have. Somehow, I just had faith that we would make it happen.



And we did.

Any one else take the challenge? Tell us! Tell us!

If you're still thinking about it, I'm not so keen on rules around here, and deadlines shmedlines. Especially if the dinner party feel daunting for you, I would take this particular challenge.

With a friend, a whole lot more is possible.

the salon challenge: cooking with friends

It's been a little while since I posted my last salon challenge. I figured we all might need a tiny break from entertaining after the whirlwind that is December, but the break is over. As cozy as you might be reading your book over there on the couch, remember that February is coming. I don't know how February is where you are, but here, it is a month that requires optimism. It is a month of bitter cold, dirty snow banks, and grumpy bank tellers. It is a month when we really need friends around us to remind us that the world will defrost, someday.

You can stay on the couch, but put down Tolstoy and pick up the cookbooks. And get a few friends on the phone. For this salon challenge, the theme is cooking with friends. Recruit a friend or two, and throw a dinner party together. If you each invite people that the other person doesn't know that well, you've taken care of the rules already.

This dinner can be as fancy or as casual as you like, as long as it is special. If you are new to the challenge, everything you need to know is here, and there are some (kind of) helpful hints here. Make it happen before the first of March, and you'll be glad you did. And of course, don't forget to come back here and tell us about it.
I can't wait.

on dinner parties, ond oven explosions, and other matters

This is what my oven looked like, about an hour before people were supposed to show up the other night for the dinner party. Half of the meal had yet to go into the oven.

Yes, that is glass. Very hot glass.

Okay, so here is a word of advice to you. You decide to bake some crazy Italian mountain bread. Maybe you're not much of a bread baker, but you are intrigued by the concept of a bread that takes days to make, and you'd like to see what a sponge entails, and so you go for it.
You get that yeast bubbling, and the sponge becomes your new pet, if only for a few days.

It all seems to be going so well. You are going to make not one, but two of these majestic loaves, and it seems that the world is on your side. When it's time for the bread to rise, it does so in a way that has never occurred in your kitchen. You pamper it underneath a towel, and you watch it grow.

and grow.


You put the first loaf in the oven; you fill the pyrex on the bottom rack with water to caress the loaf with steam. It turns golden brown, and as you calmly pull the elements of your dinner for fourteen into perfect alignment, the bread bakes. It looks beautiful.
You will be done a whole half an hour before anyone arrives. You will even have time to change your clothes. The table has been set for hours.

You pull out the first loaf, and seamlessly slide the second onto the hot baking stone.
Oh, the pyrex on the bottom rack is empty- maybe you should put a little more water in there for the second loaf.
Okay, you ready for that advice now?
BOIL THE WATER FIRST!
Why? Well of course I already knew this. I have in fact shattered a pyrex before. It's just that I was getting ready for the party and I was... distracted.
But you know what happens when you put cold water into a very very hot glass pan?

Yes, I'm sure you do.

BOOM! CRASH!

I don't even know how to express the sound. I had my head in the oven to pour the water in, and the thing exploded. There was glass all over the kitchen.
It was 6:30.
We were having lasagne, and we hadn't even put it together yet.

But this is the thing. The pan exploded in my face, and there wasn't a piece of glass on me. Especially not in my eye, which is essentially what should have happened giving the positioning of the whole thing. I have no idea why I ended up okay in that moment, but man oh man am I thankful.
The only casualty of the whole affair, besides the pyrex of course, was that second loaf of bread. I admit to you that I thought about trying to pick the glass out of it, but then I realized that perhaps that wasn't the best of ideas. Oh how that loaf glittered in the light.

Joey spent the next 45 minutes picking hot glass out of the oven. We assembled two lasagnes (including rolling out the noodles) in about 10 minutes. I even got a minute to change my clothes, which Joey and I both did while singing the girls to sleep.
In the end there was one loaf of bread, which we at with this lasagne. The whole meal came out of the endlessly lovely cookbook, The Splendid Table by Lynne Rosetto Kasper. I have had this cookbook for ages, and have dreamed about making an entire meal from the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy. I am not Italian at all, and if I were, I'm sure that I never would have exploded a glass pan in my oven.

This was how it went, culinary-wise.
We made cocktails by soaking a sugar cube in blood orange bitters and pouring Prosecco over the cube.
Then there were cured meats, and a cheese called squacquerone that I made from yogurt, buttermilk, sour cream, cream cheese and lemon. There were cauliflower and pearl onions pickled in balsamic vinegar. There was a heap of salad on a cutting board, a salad of bitter greens with a warm balsamic dressing. I'm going to give you the recipe for that one this week. Then there were the aforementioned lasagnes, and the solitary and triumphant loaf of Mountain Bread. And there was a lot of wine, and then there were cinnamon and clove custards and sweet cornmeal biscuits. And more wine.
It was a meal that did not require me to be in the kitchen at all during the dinner party, and that was a very good thing. After all, the table is a much better place to be.

This brings me to something that it is time to get into. I mean, let's get into it, really.
I can't even tell you how many people have told me how they would love to have a dinner party, but they are truly terrified. There are just so many questions.
For instance:
How can you afford to feed all of those people?
How do you choose a menu that you can actually accomplish and get out to the table?
How do the logistics work? Do you plate everyone's dinner, or do you put the food out on the table? Or do you make it a buffet?
Where do you get enough dishes?

And that's just the beginning.
I am absolutely totally not a dinner party expert. But I do seem to be learning a few things in this process. And because I'm hoping that I'm not the only one delving into the dinner party world, I am very happy to share. I would also be thrilled to hear the tricks that are working for you in your soirees as well.
Tomorrow, I'm going to organize these thoughts a bit, so before I do, if you have any specific questions on dinner party methods and logistics, leave them here and I'll see what I can do.

See you then.

the table in the morning

This morning, the girls woke me up really, really early.

In fact, it was only a few hours after I had gone to bed. I figured that since they dragged me out of bed, I had better take a few pictures of what was left of the dinner party.

Usually, Joey and I make it a habit to stay up for hours after everyone has gone home, doing the dishes and going over the party for ourselves. We don't have a dishwasher, and this process takes hours.
But last night, we went straight to bed. It was late, I mean, really late, and before he could finish his sentence, "Let's just wait till..." I was stumbling down the hallway. The girls were totally entertained to find me in my pajamas this morning that were fully inside out.

But this morning, through my, well let's just call it a haze, the morning-after table made me feel happy. I could almost hear the sound of everyone still talking, and it felt great to have them there.

Tomorrow I'll tell you what I made, and about the crazy dramatic moment in my dinner preparation where I was almost blinded (I swear I don't make these things up!). But tonight I'd just really like to thank the people who came last night, and the people who have come to the previous dinner parties. It's not easy to walk into a room and sit at a table with people you don't know, and I have deep gratitude that you all are willing to take a risk and go with it, even if the looming possibility of an evening of stagnant conversation and horrible food seemed too much to bear. I hope that you were glad you came, and that I sat you next to someone you liked, and that you're belly was full and happy when you left. I am so happy to know you.

On to the next party? I'm going to change things a bit. In the spirit of the essay that got me started on this whole thing, I'm going to start asking you to invite (or reinviting) yourselves. If you live around here, or you might be passing through, let me know and I'll try to get something together if it's not already happening. You can contact me up there in the Nav bar, or just leave a comment. Just tell me you want in, and the seat is yours.

And as usual, I'd love it if you want to share any salon dinner parties that you are hosting. Tell us about them in the comments, or send me pictures and I'll show them off.

It's a slow revolution, but a revolution nonetheless. If you haven't tried it, go for it. Let's get everyone to come sit down and eat.

a winner! and dinner party thoughts...

I know you're dying of suspense, but before I tell you who won the fancy coffee maker, a few thoughts on dinner parties...

For those of you who pay attention to dates, you may notice that the salon challenge date was yesterday, with no dinner party from me.
I've been meaning to tell you that it's coming, it's coming. I've had to reschedule twice, and so I have missed my own deadline. But it's on again, and I have faith that on this night to come in December, my guests will indeed arrive.
But just because I haven't posted, doesn't mean that you shouldn't. I've just heard from Laurel (hello old friend!) about a lovely soiree involving foods from "the country of northwest autumn" (I'll visit that country anytime!) for 12 with place cards and everything. Has anyone else been taking the challenge? Please, do tell.
If this challenge is news to you, go here to learn more, and here to find the current theme. Of course, the holiday that is queen of all dinner parties is coming up, and I'd love to see those too.

The heart of this whole endeavor is the act of invitation. I like to focus on people I don't know or don't know that well, but sometimes the challenge can just be finding the time to invite an old friend to dinner. I don't know about you, but I can't tell you how many times "we've got to have you over for dinner one of these days!" gets thrown around on a weekly basis. When it gets down to it, if I can't find the time to invite someone in, my life is too damned busy.

So there you have it. I'm sure you've all read your final issue of Gourmet six or seven times. But because it bears repeating, I thought I'd let Ruth speak on the challenge, through her very final letter from the editor. Someday, maybe she'll come too, but either way, she definitely gets it.

From Ruth Reichl, in her Letter from the Editor from the very last issue of Gourmet, November 2009

"For me, the whole point of asking people to dinner is that you're inviting them into your life. They show up for a true reality show, for a moment when they discover who you really are. Your friends may not get a faultless meal in a fabulous house, but they do get the pleasure of knowing that you trust them. If you want a cleaned-up version of the truth, you can always hire a caterer and a phalanx of servers and be assured a perfect evening. But perfect evenings rarely lead to great friendships."


So tell me your thoughts, plans, hell, if you invite me to your dinner party and I don't have to get on a plane, I will go through anything to get there.

And now, yes, it's time. Thank you to my random number generator (Joey and his cubs hat) for choosing the winner of the scientific and beautiful Coffee maker....

Paul O.

Hooray for Paul! Send me an email with your address and it will be on its way.

And I have to say, your words on coffee were poignant and perfect. This challenge also pulled some old friends out of the woodwork, an added bonus for me! (Hello everyone... so nice to see you over here.) So that we can all be winners today, I have put together everyone's words, in the order that I got them, in a bit of an ode...


reason to get up,
warmth for wintry weather.

it hits the spot...
morning lifeblood-evening composure.

Coffee, noun: mental treadmill
Milk NO, Sugar NO...perfect
YUM

Awake all night. Coffee=survival
makes me feel alive

Dark goddesses persistent concoction
'tis time, 'tis time
the morning alchemist's 'aqua vitae'
better than green chile

dark delicious bitter black brew
Between cold hands, fragrant refuge
Coffee saves patients' lives daily

Thanks everyone. Hope you all are having a fabulous Monday.

grab a friend and get fancy

Well friends, it's that time again. I've been hearing a lot of possibilities of dinner parties- who's going for it? We're having a revolution! Drop the busy moment and get some folks at your table. You won't regret it, except for in the moment when the kitchen's a mess, the canapes fell on the floor, and the guests are at the door. But what is life if not an adventure? Who's with me here?
So what's the culinary challenge? Here we go....
Pick a country- cook the food. Japanese? Finnish (got your smelts ready?) Turkish? Go for it.
You might choose to work from one cookbook the whole way through, or you can find food from varied sources. Feel free to extend the theme to the decor, your clothes, whatever strikes you.
Then tell us about it! Posting date is November 15. And keep us in the loop along the way. Are you new to the challenge? Loose, made to be broken rules can be found here.

i did it again

You've got to try this dinner party thing, I'm serious. Like newspapers, and playing outside; this is one tradition that we should keep around.

I actually got to take part in two salon challenges this time. While we were in Portland, Sarah and Jefferson took the challenge, and everyone there was new to me. It was Sarah's birthday, and we made little lamb meatloafs (meatloaves? how often to you put that one in the plural?) with spicy yogurt sauce, feta mint corn and roasted vegetables. We started off with oysters, and finished with ricotta chocolate mousse. I didn't take any pictures, because it was 130 degrees in the kitchen, and the camera would have slipped right out of my hands. But have you had oysters? They make my heart beat really fast. They are thrilling. It was a lovely dinner.
A few weeks later, I threw my party. The challenge was local, and of course I chose that because in late August, I knew it would be a cinch.

There were some good friends there, and some hopefully to be friends, and a poor unsuspecting couple who called me for some work advice and ended up getting invited to dinner. I applauded their courage at coming over even though they had never even met me, and altogether it was a fabulous group.
And what did we eat? It was a cold and rainy day, and we started off with gin and tonics with local gin and far away tonic and lime. I made two galettes, one with the old favorites: roasted potatoes, red peppers, onions, and brebis blanche. The other had caramelized leeks, Monterey chevre, roasted turnips, and prosciutto. There were little pickled vegetables and roasted garlic. And I roasted a big box of tomatoes and made a stew with summer squash, onions, herbs, and local lamb chorizo. We had sourdough ciabatta with two different herb butters. Green salad with beets and goat cheese. And for dessert, mint and blueberry ice cream cake with maple whipped cream and lemon verbena tea from the garden. Recipes to come, I promise. But I'll give you a few pictures to tide you over.









It's in my nature to give unwanted advice, and sometimes I get pushy. I know, I'm working on it. But don't just take my word on this one, throw yourself a dinner party. I'll post the next challenge on October 1.

The Salon Challenge- you don't know the guests, but you know the food

So the other day, we had the good fortune stop by Elmer's store for the first time in a while. In addition to all the wonderful things they serve there, they also sell bread made by a woman a few doors down. She calls it Annabread. It is very special, rustic sourdough of many varieties, but there is something especially unique about Annabread. It is made with local wild yeast gathered from the flowers of Ashfield, MA. Local wild yeast!
This brings me to my main point here. As promised, I am presenting another Salon challenge. And the theme of this challenge should be no problem this time of year. We've all done local, I know, but it's trendy because it's a really good idea, and I want to you to use this one as a research project. I challenge you to have a dinner party that is as locally sourced as humanly possible. Sure you can get local produce, but is anyone growing local grain? Meat? Fish? Butter? Booze? See what you can find, and plan your menu from there. And by local, I mean as local as possible- I won't give a mileage requirement.
A quick recap on the rules. Dinner, sit down, some percentage of people that you don't know that well. As the summer seems to be speeding by, I'm setting the reveal at September 15.
Let me know if you plan on participating- I can't wait to see what you find.

invited to dinner

Yes, I'm having dinner at my house. Would you like to come? Joey will make you a place card that looks like this, only with your name.

I promise that I will stress for weeks over what I will cook for you and how many forks I need. My menu will be revised over and over. I will borrow many glasses so that I can give you a separate glass for your hibiscus vodka cocktail, your water, your wine, and your fresh mint tea.

I will finally settle on a menu. I will set the table, and everyone will have a fork, and more. I will pick every flower that is growing in my yard.

And then I will put my entire family to work, even the children. Rosie makes a mean fresh noodle.

The noodles will be carefully hung, waiting for your arrival.
And as I scramble the last few courses together, you will arrive, greeted in the orchard by Joey. He will pour you a cocktail, and you will meet the other guests, amazed that although you live in the same small town, you've never met!

And while you talk and drink and comment on the charm of the chain link fence, I will be burning the toasts for the broccoli raab crostini. I will be hyperventilating. I will be cursing my insistence to push my own limits in order help myself grow as a person. I will be very sweaty, and not in an attractive way.


And when I make it outside, you will eat the broccoli raab crostini, and it will be good.

But wait, Joey is ushering you inside. The sun is setting, you're already drunk, and we've missed the good light for the photos. No! Don't take your time, enjoying the evening. I need photos! And the sun is setting. Oh well. Sun's down. Okay, go ahead and enjoy yourself, I guess. Damn.

So first, there will be Sorrel Leek Custards with goat cheese. They will be warm, and I will drizzle creme fraiche on them for you. You will be excited about this, because they are really really good.

Then, there will be Turnip with Turnip Greens Soup. It might make you feel oddly aroused, as turnips are wont to do. You'll feel uncomfortable for a moment because you are sitting next to someone you don't know, but then you'll have more wine and you will feel better.

Then I will disappear, and so will Joey. There will be a lot of steam coming from the kitchen, and you might see a few fresh noodles flying through the air. I will be working very hard, as apparently I let the noodles dry a bit too long and it takes a bit of an effort to give them a palatable texture. Joey will be very supportive, which is good, because at this moment there is a chance that this might not go too well.

Good thing we've had a bit too much to drink.


And in the end, it will be alright, although not quite as good as your previous courses. But the shrimp is nice and garlicky, and who can argue with fresh pasta, right?


Then, when you are all full of noodles, I will bring you salad. It will be really fresh lettuce, and there will be goat cheese and pea shoots (of course!) and roasted pecans and a mustardy vinaigrette. We eat salad after the entree around here- I don't know why. Tonight, you'll do that too.

And Luckily, there's fresh strawberry ice cream with rosewater whipped cream for dessert. I will mash up the strawberries and freeze them in a way that will bring you contentment, at least I hope so. If I succeed, you will sit, late into the night, drinking your fresh mint tisane, talking to your new friends and making me feel happy.

Anyone got a story for me? Tell it in a comment, or email me photos and I will gleefully post them. The next challenge will be up August 1. Who will come to dinner, I wonder?

A Preview

Well, I did it. If any of you were wondering... And I will of course, save the details for later, but I just wanted to let you know that I survived, no wait, enjoyed, no wait had a really really good time at my first dinner party. More to come...

And I'm on the road for a few days- but I'll be back soon with some good stuff, as well as updates from Joey and Luke's bbq bro-dtrip that he'll be gloatingly sending to me all week.

It's nice to make friends- Take the Challenge!

It's the moment you've all been waiting for! Well five or six of you, at least. Are you taking the salon challenge? Are you inviting the world to dinner? Are you ready for the theme?
Okay... the theme is....

COURSES

We're taking it slow this month. We're going to be leisurely at our dinner parties, we're going to try lots of stuff. There is no required number of courses that you must serve, it just needs to be significantly more than you are used to. Remember, if you are serving four courses instead of two, you need less of each dish, so you can use this to your advantage when you are planning your meal. Just a little recap on the rules....
1. at least six guests beyond the people who live in your house
2. some of the people you invite must be people who you don't really know so well
3. it must be a sit down dinner

We'll get to share our parties on July 1, so make it happen sometime before then. When you post, send me a link, so I can compile all the loveliness. If you don't have a blog, feel free to send me some text and pics, and I will post for you. Some people are also posting on facebook, and that is cool too. Have fun- try not to get too stressed- enjoy the challenge of it!

And one more thing- some people have said that they would love to join in, but they live in a closet or some other small space. One of the goals of this whole thing is to open our homes to people we have been wanting to meet or hang out with but haven't really taken the leap. So if you're limited on space or time, and you want to to take the opportunity to invite one or two people to dinner in the spirit of the challenge, tell us about that too.

I can't wait to see what you all make of this. Feel free to check in and let us know how your preparations are going.

The Salon Challenge- Inviting the World to Dinner

There is something I've been thinking about for a little while now that I want to share with you, no actually, invite you to. A ways back, I heard an essay on the NPR series This I Believe, that I just couldn't get out of my mind. Jim Haynes wrote about his weekly salons, dinners held in his Paris home for upwards of sixty people, all brought together from the various ends of the earth.
Dinner parties have always held a place in the warmest depths of me. As a precocious child of a single mother, I was often happily dragged to sit down dinners farther back in my history that I can even recount, and the warm glow around a table never fails to revive a sense of calm and comfort in me. As an adult (if that is truly what I am now), I love to create these dinners, planning menus and seating arrangements.
I love to create them, but more often than not, they don't actually happen. The girls occupy most of my food energy, and I find that four and six are not necessarily the best ages for dinner party guests. I have so many excuses why I can't throw a good dinner party- the dishwasher broke two years ago from Rosie hanging on it every day, the table's not quite big enough, money is tight, take your pick. But the truth is, I love to invite people to dinner, and even more, I love to invite combinations of people, and some people I don't even really know. It is just too easy to lock myself away up here, and I find the few dinner parties that have actually occurred around my table to be nothing short of expansive. And I don't know about you, but I could always use a bit more expanse in my world.
So here is the challenge. Every two months, have a dinner party. I will provide a general theme, and the only other rules are as follows.
1. You must invite at least six people beyond your immediate family.
2. Some percentage of your guests must be people that you don't know all that well.
3. It must be a sit down dinner.

That's it. I will let you know the general theme by June 1, and the reveal date for your post will be July 1. If you don't have a blog but want to take part, you can send me photos and a writeup and I will post them. Just comment on this post and let me know that you'll be joining in. I can't wait.