AfricanKelli

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The Crazy:

I celebrated Valentine’s day by throwing a small, simple dinner party for a couple friends.

Fine.

It was a choreographed, triumphant dinner party, with seven courses for more than a dozen friends. The older I get, the less ability I have take the easy route when the difficult one? It has better views! Never mind it requires complicated maps, immunizations and a safety harness. Never mind you look horrible in a safety harness.

Dinner — which started with 4 friends who asked me to cook for their single hearts — ended with 14 people perched around a large folding table in my living room. Of course that original quartet knew what they were asking. They wanted a warm meal, wine,  and conversation without the looming commercialism of the holiday.

I had time to put together a complicated menu because the Valentine’s were ordered, addressed and readied with the most ridiculous FOREVER LOVE stamps the post office offers, weeks in advance. Because in the back of my very crazy mind, someone might notice if I used the leftover Christmas stamps. And cards can’t be late when they can be early.

Did I mention this party fully indulges the crazy? 

The Sexy:

Can a menu be sexy? Will you forgive the unabashed pun of showcasing a “piece of meat” under this subhead?

Oh, come on. Play along.

I. Charcuterie

II. Cauliflower bacon soup

III. Salad with a citrus vinegarette

IV. Berry sorbet

V. Stuffed pork loin, garlic mashed red potatoes

VI. Chocolate and coffee tasting

VII. Lemon bars, brownies, orange blossom madeleines

The Love:

A friend of mine brought me the most thoughtful Valentine gift: a pair of red cooking tongs. He knew they’d be put to great use and would go well with my kitchen. Also, while I enjoyed my company — he jumped up and washed nearly all of the dishes. I got up this morning to find minimal mayhem after 2 days of cooking:

Also — I found some lovely new vintage items at a thrift market near my home for this party. I was worried I wouldn’t have enough bowls, spoons, etc. Friends brought items so we wouldn’t have to wash between courses and it worked out beautifully.

This gave me a chance to set a mismatched table — with thrown together linens — that showed my own peculiar sense of shabby chic:

The group that came together was as happily mismatched and chic. They are a kind and fun gaggle who I’m so happy to have around my table. Spending the night with new friends and a warm meal made for the best crazy, sexy, loving Valentine’s yet.

~K

Wishing you a day of love and happiness,

Kelli + WNM

{I am stealing this blog post title from my friend Elizabeth (Mini). If you aren’t reading her blog, you should. It is some of the funniest writing on the web.}

Last night I met friends in LoHi — oh Denver, with your bizarre naming of neighborhoods — for dinner. It’s been a cold week, so that record-breaking snowfall has turned into slush and large stretches of ice. I circled the block until voila! Amazing! There was a large spot available that I could nose into. Parallel parking isn’t among my strengths.

Okay. Driving isn’t among my strengths.

Little did I realize any seasoned Denver driver would have seen that spot two blocks away and thought, “No way. You are never going to get out of there.”

Compare this to my, “Woohoo! Parking spot! Wait. Why won’t my car move forward? Wait. Why won’t my car back up? Wait. Why am I on a one way street with traffic barreling down on me and my car is 3 feet from the curb, now taking up two parking meters with the front left wheel stuck in a rather large pothole, while the rest of the car slides around on a block of ice?”

Full disclosure — I’ve already received an embarrassing number of parking tickets in my few months of living in Colorado. I knew leaving my car that far from the curb — while just barely out of traffic — and taking up two meters would surely result in a series of new yellow envelopes tucked sinisterly under my windshield wipers.

So, I did what any Phoenician who can’t move her car does. I flagged down strangers and handed them my keys. I asked for help. One lovely Samaritan jumped in and spent 15 minutes trying to navigate out of the hole. Problem being, I had a car both in front and behind me. If she gunned it, she’d likely fly into one or the other. But oh, how she tried. Patiently, kindly, with my tires smoking. Yet the native Coloradoan gave up, suggesting I call a tow truck.

Instead I filled the meter, met my friends for dinner and begged them to come with me back to the car to see if they could help. By the time we got there, the car in front had left giving me enough room to use momentum to rock the car back and forth in drive and reverse to get out of the pothole, off the ice and happily on the road home.

Needless to say, these are not issues you deal with living in the desert.

Driving home I realized this momentum maneuver is so much like writing a novel. Sometimes you get stuck. You beg strangers for help. You walk away hoping the problem resolves itself. You throw money at it. You have a stiff drink. You beg friends to listen, to look at it, to give you their opinion. And then, magically, you move backward five feet to grab the precious inch forward you are dying to gain.

~K

Sometimes when I am preparing for a dinner party, I let myself get lost in a pretend land where I have a reality cooking show. Wearing a frilly apron and pearls, I whip through the fridge, pulling out ingredients and humming along to Miles Davis on the radio. I rattle off the recipes to the audience (Nelson.) I laugh at my mistakes and spills and blush bashful when something comes out of the oven that makes me proud.

Yesterday my La-La Land looked a bit like this:

With a dozen friends coming over after work for a meal I marketed as “a casual happy hour,” the menu got a wee bit carried away, as it goes when I receive an issue of Bon Appetit mid-week. My friend David wanted to bring black eyed peas and make his famous cast iron skillet cornbread. Sarah wanted to make kale chips. Everyone else wanted a warm meal and a cold drink. And so, I added roasted Brussels sprouts, baked barbeque chicken, and lots of dessert. Lots and lots of dessert.

Baking apple pie reminds me of my Grandmother Maxine — known for her crust prowess. These beauties would make her smile. The coconut cake, made with coconut oil and milk and topped with toasted flakes over a buttercream cream cheese frosting, went over well too. (It was a take on a recipe in this month’s BA, and a nod to the southern theme.)

The sponsors of my pretend cooking show would be Kitchen-Aid, Tory Burch and Bare Minerals. The eggs would be fresh from the chicken coop. The sprouts would have come from my garden. The guest would sit together around a great kitchen table, rather than folding chairs with plates in their laps like last night. We would play cards after dinner and sip French press coffee, relaxed and happy.

That said, I’ve got the bones of this daydream right: an incredibly sweet group of friends, great food and lovely Mr. Davis on the radio. A delightful start to the weekend, indeed.

Watch your back Martha,

K