Hostess and Guest

My 22 year-old nephew Walker and his girlfriend Caitlin, both UNC students, came over for lunch today. She had never been to our house.

From 9:30 until 1, Bob and I madly scurried, getting ready. Mostly that meant near-renovating our house. He took more than a wheelbarrowful of papers and books out of the kitchen and den, that all might have a place to sit.

I wouldn't call it hostess anxiety, but it was definitely host-and-hostess hurryup.

And I realized that when I was that age and going to visit boyfriend's family, it never occurred to me, while obsessing over what to wear, that BF's family might be engaged in the same minor uproar.

Similarly, when I was teaching at Duke in 07, I was nervous before class fairly often, very much so at the start of the semester. When I was a student at Duke in the 60s, it never crossed my mind that a professor might be scared. What a ridiculous idea!

I find it calming now to flip the situation around, to remember that the other person may also be in a dither.





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Family Cooking Adventures

I believe I mentioned that I, a non-cook, was venturing to make the turkey dressing for the family gathering this year (rather than buying my assignment.)

Here's how the project shook down. I stirred stuff up and cooked it and it was bad: no taste, weird texture. So I tore it up and added milk and some spices and whizzed it all up with a mix-master and cooked it again. Then packed it up for the trip to the coast.

The final product was better. Edible. Would have been good except for the fake bacon bits I threw in, which sort of dominated. Well, no one complained.

However, my ten year old nephew Tucker produced a triumph. His assignment was corn pudding (he likes to cook.) I didn't know who'd made what or that any of the kids had cooked anything, and said at dinner: "Who brought this?" It was phenomenal...inspired. The kid has a talent.

Talent or not --and both of those situations were represented-- I think Tucker and I were both pretty bold. For a ten year-old boy to produce a work of art in the form of a casserole...or for me to take a shot at something non-store-bought for the occasion both strike me as venturing outside the ordinary. And we all had a good time.

Hope your Turkey Days were good.





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