Timeline of a dinner party part I

I cooked a multi course dinner for 16 people (including myself) this past Saturday. Here is a timeline of the preparation involved.


Friday 6pm: I finish work for the week. The decision is between happy hour and going grocery shopping so I can be prepared to cook for 16 on the following day.

8:00 pm A happy two hours are over and I make my way up to Citarella. While there I purchase one very large tuna steak, five pounds of short ribs and pretty much everything I need to make dinner that I can’t purchase at the farmer’s market the following day.

845 pm I almost leave my backpack (filled with Asian pears, pistachios and a soufflé plate that I used to make souffle with the kids at work) in my shopping cart. The woman behind the counter reminds me that I need to take my backpack as well as my shopping bags home with me. I appear a little confused…perhaps happy hour was a bit too happy.


915 pm I finally make it home. The Yankees are playing the Red Sox and I need to make buttermilk ice cream to go along with the chocolate cakes tomorrow.

10pm The buttermilk ice cream base is a little too pastel yellow looking for me. I add more buttermilk and hope for the best. The Yankees are blowing a four run lead in the 8th inning against the red sox. Things are not going well.

1045 pm The Yankees lose. I start to chop onions, celery, carrots and garlic for making short ribs when I wake up tomorrow morning.

1130 pm sleep


Saturday

730 am—The alarm clock goes off I need to wake up and start making short ribs. I tiredly press the snooze button and go back to sleep.

736 am—I become really anxious and wake up. I can’t deal with the thought of not being prepared for later. I really do get anxious about these things. I don’t know if I feel less cool for writing that or for waking up at 730 on a Saturday to make short ribs.

745 am I do the thing I like to do best when I wake up in the morning…Rub down red meat with salt and pepper. Sleepily, I commence the cooking of short ribs.

835 am Short ribs are in the oven. I now get ready to go buy fish.

900 am I make the 15 minute walk to the chambers street farmers market. I look for the fish guys. They are nowhere to be found.

I ask the unhealthy food guy (he sells mostly pies and other baked goods) if he knows where they are and he tells me that their boat has broken down. I’m screwed. I buy 4 apple cider donuts

915 am I bite into a plump crispy fried, cinnamon sugar covered donut on my walk home. It is delicious.

917 am I bite into my second apple cider donut. I feel the saturated fats going straight to my gut. It feels good.

945 am On my way to teach chess I walk back by the farmers market. The fish people’s boat hasn’t been fixed yet and they’re still not there. I become sad.

10-11 I teach chess on White street. I receive four missed calls during chess lesson.

1130 I find myself in the union square farmers market praying the fish people are there so I don’t have to ask my dad to go fish shopping at Citarella for me. I now have to decide whether to buy the fish now and walk into my next chess lesson with a really large bag of raw fish or to take a risk and hope the fish people are still around when I finish teaching at one. I decide to purchase the fish now.

1150 I walk to Gramercy Park North with a big plastic bag full of scallops, flounder, tile fish and melting ice. I’m lucky that this family isn’t completely freaked out and lets me use their refrigerator.

110 I finish teaching my second chess lesson. Back to the Greenmarket and whole foods to continue grocery shopping.


Part II coming either tomorrow or a little later this week. We’ll see how the combination of work and beautiful weather translates into time spent or not spent in front of my computer working on this blog.