JoAnne Simco loved to entertain. The short, peppy woman liked having friends over and treating them all as 'guests of honor'. She even made her own bread and her own salad dressings. She loved setting a table so her guests would both appreciate her creativity but also feel special that she had invested so much effort in pleasing them. However, as everyone who cooks knows, not everything always turns out as you've planned.
One night in June, JoAnne and her husband Don, gave what she recalls as the worst dinner party in her life. It started as all her parties did, with a plan.
“You know Don, I think it would be fun to have a circus party theme.” She was looking through one of her 113 cookbooks. Yes, she actually counted them just before Christmas so she would know if she could possibly put another cookbook on her wish list. She decided there was always room for another cookbook.
“Ummm, whatever you want, Jo.” Don, a tall, thin and quiet young man, knew his role was to agree and just do whatever little chores JoAnne assigned him before any party. He didn't care. He knew that before dinner, he and his male buddies would be in the garage talking sports, so he wouldn't get in her way. And their wives would be chattering away in the kitchen with their offers to help that were always rejected.
Don did his share after everyone left. He did the washing, drying and putting away of the 'good' dishes, silver, and pots and pans. JoAnne cleared up any left over food and picked up the living room. They would both fall into bed, tired but happy and with smiles on their faces. Usually it was another successful event. But not this time.
“For fun, we could serve regular broiled steaks but call them lion steaks. You'd have to grill them but I know you like to use your new grill. I'll serve deviled eggs as an appetizer but call them ostrich eggs.”
“Sounds good to me. How about cotton candy for dessert?” He suggested.
“Ohhh, that would be great, but I don't know how to make it. I'll just check through my books, I'm sure I'll find something.” Everyone loved ice cream so she decided to make a frozen dessert.
She found a circus theme children's sheet in a discount store to use as a table cloth. In the center of it she placed two large ceramic animals that were popular in the 1970s, a large zebra and a lion cub. For extra flare, she attached red and orange ribbons to the hanging light fixture over the table and taped them down to edges of the cloth covered table. Each place setting had a circus themed paper napkin that she found in a children's birthday party section. It was really fun to come up with inexpensive ways to carry out her theme.
They had invited the three couples who were their best friends. And as good guests, when they arrived they exclaimed over the 'ostrich eggs' and 'tiger's milk chip dip'. The men had to be coaxed to try them, even though they were assured they weren't really ostrich eggs or had tiger's milk in them.
Tonight Don was looking forward to firing up his Weber grill. Since he had 4 large sirloin steaks to grill and then slice into serving portions, he worried about making sure they were cooked to everyone's liking. He put them over the hot coals and went back into the garage to talk to the guys.
JoAnne was getting the other dinner items ready when the phone rang. It was Gay, a new neighbor, who had just moved in behind them. “I hate to call you but I thought I better let you know.”
“Oh, that's OK, what is it?” She wondered what on earth this neighbor needed to tell her right now when she was in the middle of fixing dinner.
“Well,” Gay sounded apologetic, “I know some people cook in different ways...”
JoAnne was beside herself thinking, get to the point, get to the point.
“But, do you know,” Gay continued, “that flames are shooting out of your grill?”
“What! What! No I didn't. Thanks, bye.” JoAnne hung up, ran out to the garage and yelled at Don, “The grill's on fire! The grill's on fire.” Don dashed to the back yard to see red and yellow and blue flames shooting almost as high as the roof. He rescued the burnt steaks and scraped off the singed surfaces. Everyone had a good laugh. It sure made for a conversation piece during the rest of the evening.
Before they sat down to eat, JoAnne had taken the frozen dessert out of the freezer. It was a strawberry cream cake formed into a loaf. The recipe called for removing it from the freezer before dinner to give it time to soften enough for slicing.
After the grilled (and scraped) steak, baked potatoes and tossed salad (filled with tiny pieces of red and green pepper, called circus confetti) had been eaten and used dishes taken out to the kitchen, JoAnne took a large carving knife to slice through the ice cream loaf. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't cut through it. It was still frozen solid.
She went back to the dining room and explained it would take a while to defrost but they could 'rest' between courses. After a few minutes of conversation she went back to the kitchen and this time took out the electric carving knife and tried to use that. Still no success.
Back to the dining room, this time she was so flustered she said, “I'm sorry it's still not ready. I'm just so glad you're all people I don't care about.” She thought about what she just said as everyone's mouth fell open and then they all laughed. She tried to explain. “No, no, what I mean is that you're all such good friends, I don't have to worry about everything going wrong.”
“Oh, JoAnne, that puts the cap on a truly delightful evening. I guess if you serve us burned meat and no dessert, you really don't care about us.”
JoAnne's face was bright red. Don came over to her and gave her a warm hug. “Honey, everybody loves you because you always say what you really, really mean.”
Everyone laughed again. And enjoyed the dessert when it finally became soft enough to cut and serve.
The End
Another wonderful story!
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