Sunday, May 30. The Graduation Party. The very last gasp (and I am gasping) of Mary Leigh's high school adventure transpires today, as we hold a party in her honor at the Cool Water Ranch, for family and close friends. Which adds up to about thirty people, all arriving around noon. Since neither of our children celebrate their birthdays at home anymore, this is our first big party since Thanksgiving.
For all my alleged knowledge and sophistication in the food arena, I know now that I have been cut out of the loop completely when we plan an event like this. Mary Ann asked me this question yesterday: "What are you doing for the party? I thought you could grill some sausages, make a blue cheese dip, and bake strawberry shortcakes." I had a few ideas. What about the ham that everybody expects when they come over here? Guacamole? Cheesecake? A whole tenderloin of beef? You know, my specialties? No, no, no and no, she said. Why don't you do this, this, this and this instead? I didn't say. I just became a line cook and took orders. The spread was one hundred percent Mary Ann's menu.
I did have a little input yesterday when we went to Rouse's and bought the makings of an antipasto platter. It was interesting that every single item I wanted required the opening of a new haunch of deli meat. I had to explain to the very nice guy across the counter what the stuff was, and why it needed to be sliced paper-thin. We left with capicola, sopressata, and the cheaper of the two prosciuttos (MA insisted on that last one, a decision we would regret later).
My first task was to fire up the Big Green Egg to smoke an allegedly half-cooked pork shoulder MA said she found when defrosting the old freezer a couple of weeks ago. When she handed it to me, I found it not only fully cooked but fully sliced--and badly, at that, into slices too thick to eat and too thin to slice thinner.
I went outside to shut down the Egg (you can do that, by closing all the vents), and turned my attention making mini-hamburgers. MA went across the lake yesterday specifically buy the perfect, cute little buns for these. I rolled about sixty balls of ground round with various seasonings into thick but narrow patties, and stacked them up on sheets of waxed paper. "Those little burgers are the perfect size!" praised my wife. I made a goofy grin and drooled a little to show my pride in having done something without screwing up.
Then I baked the shortbreads, which I can do in my sleep. They're just like our buttermilk biscuits, except with half-and-half instead of buttermilk and two tablespoons of sugar per cup of flour.
Mary Ann, meanwhile, made up a beautiful platter of antipasto with the capicola and other deli meats, plus poached and marinated asparagus, cheeses, olives, grilled squash, zucchini, eggplant and red peppers (nobody ever touches the latter four, but she makes them for every party because she likes the way they look). She baked a few dozen mini-quiches and a vat of spinach-artichoke dip, to make everybody feel as if they were at Houston's.
Now she was working on steaming and stuffing a half-dozen artichokes. This project would frustrate her not just today but for another week. She couldn't get them to come out right. I love artichokes and that Italian-style bread crumb stuffing. I hate stuffed artichokes. But this is of no importance.
Around eleven, the guest of honor awakened. She was just in time to listen to MA ride me about the blue cheese dip she wanted to serve with the homemade potato chips that she fried last night and nearly blackened in the oven a few minutes ago. "I want a dip, not a dressing!" she kept warning me. "Thick! Make sure it's thick!"
"Yeah, Dad, did you get that?" said Mary Leigh after hearing this for the third time. Not for nothing did her classmates name her Most Sarcastic Class Mouth. "Dad, are you sure it's a dip, not a dressing?" she said, a few more times, while MA frowned and shook her head at the forces arrayed in opposition to her Great Plan.
My revenge: the Marys loved the blue cheese dip. Secret: sour cream.
At around eleven-thirty, I went back out to re-light the Egg. But nothing happened after the electric starter ran for five minutes. I pulled it out and saw that the coil had broken completely. I have no other way to light a charcoal fire quickly. I had to retreat to the indoor grill.
That proved a lucky break. At around noon--just as the guests began to arrive--an enormous early-summer cloudburst drenched everything for an hour. I wouldn't have been able to cook anything outdoors, anyway.
The andouille went under the broiler in a pan. It threw off an unbelievable amount of fat. But it was spicy, chunky, and delicious with a dip of Creole mustard. This was Rouse's house-packed andouille, and I agree with MA that it's a superb product.
The boudin, also in the broiler, was the unaccountably excellent Manda vacuum-packed stuff. It's hard to believe how good and consistent this is. Even my Cajun friend Chuck Billeaud-- whose family's grocery store in Lafayette still makes boudin--thought it was good. Chuck showed up to try it without his family of girls, who were all in Destin, also celebrating a high-school graduation.
On the flattop grill before me were about two dozen mini-burgers and a half-dozen each of spicy Italian sausages and fresh bratwurst. Bratwurst? Why did she buy bratwurst? "Is that bratwurst?" she said. "I bought them because they were two for one at the store."
So there I was, metal spatula in hand, published cookbook author, flipping burgers and sausages, trying to keep the rendered fat channeled to the back. Next to me was my ten-year-old audience, Gabe. He's the little brother of two of Jude's longtime Scout buddies. Gabe--as befits kids his age--never runs out of questions and demands. He listens to my radio show and knows what questions to ask, too. "Did you make all that yourself?" he said, pointing at my crammed short-order grill. He seemed disappointed when I said that the burgers were from scratch, but the sausages were right out of a package. I shut him up briefly with one of our cute mini-burgers.
Another of the tasks assigned to me by default is cleaning up after myself and all the other cooks. Managing the constant flow of used utensils, piled-up counters, and filled sinks is a full-time job. I kept up with it all morning long, but with all this stuff on the grill I was starting to fall behind. And people wanted wine. MA knows or cares nothing about wine. "How does that thing that opens the wine bottle work?" Gabe asked. "Can I do it?"
Someone asked for a Coke. A two-liter had fallen from somewhere a few days ago, and it was still where it had fallen. Its dust-covered label bore a drawing of Santa Claus. I twisted the cap--no hiss. Flat. "No wonder!" said Gabe. "I know how to read the code, and this Coke is from 2005!"
The rain continued to pound. New arrivals were driving across the lawn. I crossed my fingers they wouldn't get stuck. Clumps of people formed throughout the living room. The kitchen, of course, was full. The kitchen is the new living room--and I'm sure I'm not the first to note this.
Mary Ann used too much of the whipping cream, and I didn't have quite enough for all the strawberry shortcakes. After using it all up (including two shortcakes with just whipped cream, no berries for Gabe), I literally threw in the towel, grabbed a glass of wine and a mini-burger, and sat down in the living room. I quit.
I looked around. The only missing element was a few young men in their late teens and early twenties. They would have found the scene very pleasant. The number of stunning young women in the room was. . .well, I don't remember ever having been in such an environment when I was that age. If I had, on the other hand, I probably would have blown it and had all the lovelies mad at me in a few minutes.
The first person to leave the party was Jude. He had a plane to catch back to Hollywood, and a movie under his direct management that he said was spinning out of control in his absence. Mary Ann was his chauffeur.
The party went on and the sun came out. I watched and crossed my fingers as the early departees crossed the soft, sodden lawn to get around cars blocking them. Lingering long enough that they were still there when Mary Ann returned from the airport were, as always, Tim and Desiree Connell. Their daughter Hillary is also a high-school just-graduate, and Mary Leigh's closest cousin. We have a lot else in common with them. Desiree is the only person who ever joins me for single-malt Scotch on the rocks. Which I relished just then. Cheers!
Tim works for the Army Corps of Engineers, and had a few informed opinions on how BP has performed badly. "Engineers are just like that," he said. "They want to do everything the most complicated way. They had a big stupid contraption that could have just crimped that pipe like a hose to keep so much oil from coming out. But that wouldn't have looked impressive, so they went for one complex fix after another that didn't get the job done."
The oil spill was Topic A all afternoon, of course, since this morning BP announced that its latest effort--the "top kill," which will now be an object of fun for a long time--had failed.
After they left, Mary Ann understood I had to get to work and that my back was hurting, and I was relieved of the clean-up job. She doesn't like me doing that anyway. She says my definition of edible leftovers sends too much good food into the garbage. I say it would help her weight-loss program to have much less food she feels required to eat. But her leftover-salvation imperative clearly is the stronger force. She kept eating those stuffed artichokes--even while complaining what a failure they were--for another week.
