Father: (standing up at dining table after dinner) Who would like a cup of tea?
John: Me!
Jennifer: Me!
Philip: Me!
Marjorie: Me!
Bernard: Me!
Patrick: Me!
Father: (sitting back down again) Well make me one while you’re at it.
When Bridie went shopping for stuff for the evening meal she had no idea it was all a waste of time. She would be dead as a doornail when the time came for her to peel a potato. She’d be sprawled on the kitchen floor, potato peeler in hand, and surrounded by four uncooked chicken drumsticks haphazardly lying on the kitchen linoleum.
Luckily the cat would spend the next few days enjoying the drumsticks, because Bridie and her medical event weren’t discovered until Wednesday and she had dropped dead on the Monday.
Dora from next door had made the discovery when she noticed that Bridie’s kitchen window had not been shut for the last two days. Bridie had always been careful with security. One had to take special care when one lived alone. Rather foolishly, when Dora discovered the two-day dead corpse she phoned for an ambulance! As if the ambulance people could work a miracle and bring a completely dead (as a doornail) corpse back to life!
Dora had been just about ready to go into town when she thought she had better check on the open kitchen window next door. The discovery of course threw a spanner in the works. It was now late afternoon and Dora still hadn’t got anything for the evening meal.
When Dora went shopping for stuff for the evening meal she had no idea it was all a waste of time. She would be dead as a doornail when the time came for her to crush a couple of garlic cloves. She’d be sprawled on the kitchen floor, garlic press in hand, and surrounded by three unchopped carrots haphazardly lying on the kitchen linoleum.
Fortunately Dora didn’t have a cat; fortunate because cats don’t eat carrots.
Erica was always one to surprise, so it was not unusual when her latest dinner party began with a salad made entirely of flower petals.
“It’s so pretty!” declared Erin.
“You’ve certainly exceeded all expectations this time,” said Eugene.
“When one dines at one of your dinners, “said Emile, “we can always expect to be surprised.”
Every guest, though daring, was a little tentative.
“Delicious!” expounded Evelyn stuffing a gladioli petal into her mouth. One suspected she made her declaration even before her taste buds had time to assimilate the mouth’s contents.
“Oh Erica! The mayonnaise!” glowed Emile. “Perfection!”
“Quite frankly,” said Savannah pushing her plate away, “I’m not a cow. I don’t eat everything I get put in front of me, and I couldn’t possibly stomach having to eat flowers. I have evolved a little further than being a muck-raking ruminant.”
Savannah was Emile’s partner. She was the only one at the table who (coincidentally) had a name that didn’t start with the letter E. It was only because of Erica’s largesse that Savannah was invited at all. No one liked her, not even Emile. Their relationship was one of convenience – whatever that meant. No one cared to ask.
“I don’t eat crap,” scorned Savanah. “I won’t touch this pile of disguised weeds.”
It was a pity because Erica had gone to considerable trouble to lace Savannah’s salad flowers with Poison Oak.
Eustace was eleven years old. He lived in the country. He had four pet ducks. They were black and white.
A river passed through the neighbouring farm. It wasn’t a big river; more of a large stream. One day Eustace’s ducks waddled down to the river and went for a swim. Eustace told the farmer. The farmer didn’t mind. He said the ducks were welcome to cross his fields and swim all day if they wished. Besides, they looked pretty swimming around.
So that is what they did. Every morning before school Eustace would let the ducks out of their pen and they would waddle down to the river. They messed about in the river all day. Then after school (after he had done his homework) he would go down to the river, call the ducks, and they would follow him home. Of course they followed because they knew it was dinner time.
One day Eustace went down to the river and called but no ducks came. Then he saw them. They had been shot at close range by a hunter and tossed into a pool in the river. The hunter hadn’t even bothered to take them home to eat.
Eustace never got any more ducks.
You’ve no idea the trouble Noeline Hartstonge and husband Quentin had in procuring ethically sourced cocoa beans. They were to be used as a conclusion to an ordinary dinner with several other couples they had met through the local Croquet Club. Ethically sourced cocoa beans and organically grown bananas. These days it was fast becoming almost impossible to entertain.
Clyde Currie was the only invited guest to eat meat. Was he going to feel hard done by when served only vegetables? Three of the guests (I shall not name them because things could become tedious) were vegan. Does one make the whole meal vegan, or are the vegans happy to sit at a table while Clyde sucks on a lamb chop and the other guests quaff egg-based quiche?
Noeline settled for a completely vegan option. It was a lot more straightforward than trying to cater for all sorts of needs. She had to make the cucumber soup twice, because the first time she accidentally used (out of sheer habit one suspects) chicken bouillon. The first main course, made mainly with kidney beans, once prepared looked a little too much like ground meat, but Noeline managed to disguise the meat-look by decorating it with button mushrooms.
The little dinner party began. The pre-dinner aqua with ice cubes and a smidgen of organic lemon juice was delightful. When it came to the mains, Audrey enquired that although it looked like ground meat with mushrooms on it, she hoped it wasn’t cooked in an oven that previously had meat cooked in it. The flavour comes through, and Audrey said she wasn’t a raging carnivore. She would pass on the kidney beans. Ronald and Emile concurred. They didn’t want to make themselves ill.
Francine said she would pass on the main because of the mushrooms. Although she wasn’t impartial to them, she had read somewhere that sometimes people can develop allergies later in life. She had no intention of tempting fate. Also, there was no guarantee that the mushroom farmer had standards of hygiene approved by the government. What did it say on the packet?
I do hope, Noeline, that you didn’t use salt; or if you did that it’s kosher. And I heard that pepper is actually fattening.
In the end, all settled for an organic banana, although Myrtle gratefully declined because of unjust wages paid to workers in Ecuador. It’s because people unlike her are not taking a stand that everyone in these third world countries have to do without. It’s bananas!
But what a delightful evening! Quite, quite delightful!
Noeline Hartstonge and husband Quentin are thinking of taking up lawn bowls.
“And so, darling,” said Dinah to her husband, Pete, as she was about to leave for town, “what would you like for dinner tonight?”
“Chicken hearts,” said Pete. Pete loved chicken hearts. Dinah hated chicken hearts. She knew he said that on purpose to annoy her.
“And take the dog with you in the car,” said Pete, “he’s getting cabin fever with all this bad weather we’re having.”
Dinah hated having to take the dog in the car when she went shopping. It prevented her from quietly shopping for hours in the big shops. Probably Pete had done it on purpose, to stop her squandering both time and money.
So that was two things Dinah hated – chicken hearts and taking the dog in the car.
Later, driving home, Dinah conceived and implemented a delightful plan.
Katrina, sometimes called Kitty and sometimes Kit depending on… on… absolutely nothing, was enthusiastically into yoga. It was yoga for breakfast, lunch and dinner – as the saying goes. To all intents and purposes it could be said that she was addicted to it. An obsession!
Personally I can’t stand the stuff. If anyone offered me yoga for breakfast I’d say, no thanks just a slice of toast and a coffee will do me fine.
What a delightful dinner party. Hedwig always manages to invite the most interesting guests. Last time there was a couple here from Saudi Arabia. My wife, who’s just left to go to the powder room, speaks fluent Arabic. They gabbled away for half the night in Arabic. Amazing! Of course, my wife is highly intelligent. And highly educated. In fact, as am I.
Emile here speaks and writes fluent Arabic. He learnt it in Djibouti when he was stationed there with the French army.
Oh! Does he? Oh! Of course my wife wouldn’t want to speak it when she returns. That would be rude. Especially since everyone else speaks only English. It would be like showing off. You may not know this, but my wife and I are heavily into horse racing. In fact, we own three race horses, and very successful they have been too. One even won the Melbourne Cup.
That’s amazing. Emile here owns two winning race horses. What did you say the names of your horses were?
Here comes my wife back now. Hello dear. I was just about to explain to this lovely couple here how we grow our own organic vegetables.
Stella had rather foolishly invited the neighbours, Mr and Mrs Jones, over for dinner. She had quite forgotten that there was no housekeeping money left in the kitty for the rest of the week. To put it bluntly, she was right out of cash and there was nothing in the freezer.
“What a stupid thing to do! What a stupid thing to do!” muttered Stella for the whole week. Somehow she was half waiting for a miracle – like by the time Friday came food would rather miraculously have fallen from the sky. One could hardly feed dinner guests on a slice of bread and a raw carrot and celery – which was all that was left. And then the miracle happened!
A rabbit!
A wild rabbit came hopping by just as Stella was emptying the tea pot of its leaves around the lemon tree. Swiftly she hit the rabbit on the head with the tea pot. It was dazed. Practical Stella wrung its neck, and with considerable joy she skinned and gutted it.
Rabbit stew! No one in the world could make rabbit stew as delicious as Stella. And Mr and Mrs Jones agreed.
“That was the most delicious rabbit I have ever tasted in my life,” said Mr Jones.
“Talk of coincidence,” laughed Mrs Jones. “It seems to be rabbit week. Our little daughter’s pet rabbit, Fluffy Balls, escaped and went missing earlier this very week.”
Making pastry wasn’t Maisie’s thing. She always bought her pastry. Making filo pastry was particularly troublesome. She rarely used it, but she got some for the freezer because she was having guests.
The big thing was to keep the pastry sheets from quickly drying out. Once unrolled they should be covered with a damp cloth.
Maisie had planned the loveliest menu for her guests. She had prepared the ground meat cooked with homemade sauces and spices. That took all morning. Then all afternoon was preparing three different sauce dips.
All that was required once the guests arrived was to quickly roll the meat into a thrice-layered square of filo pastry, brush it with melted butter, and throw it into the oven.
The guests arrived. What a gracious host Maisie was! She excused herself and went to the kitchen for the final sequence of her wondrous concoction. She took the filo pastry out of the freezer.
THAW FOR FOUR HOURS BEFORE USING.
Maisie hadn’t.
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Weave a Web 