after Dinner For Eight*
The guests attending dinner at Blackbird and K's adorable home are eclectic.
And certainly international.
Their dear friends C and M have lived in New York City, London, Paris and Chicago before settling in Tuvalu. M travels all the time and does something with money and investments for a living, Blackbird can never remember exactly what.
As for the C's, well no one really knows what Mr. C does - computer stuff? Who knows.
Mrs. C works for a chocolate company...they all know that.
Everyone is wearing their shoes.
While Blackbird would love for her dinner guests to 'pad about in cloven foot socks,' she pretty much figures, with a dog in the house (who never even wipes her feet upon entry), that the floors are dirty anyway.
And what kind of hostess would she be if she asked her guests to leave their shoes on the porch?
Perhaps if the leaf-blowing guys could find the time before Christmas to clean up their front lawn, bb (as we all love to call her) would give up her frantic OCD-like tendency to pick leaves out of the carpets...but we've digressed.
Blackbird, who flutters about the kitchen, hoping no one will notice the sausage meat on the backsplash, appears unfazed.
Her husband gladly welcomes their dinner guests and accepts their gifts of wine -
he circles around his wife to pour drinks and distract their company from the cd player which is stuck skipping on a track of Yo-Yo Ma, giving the gathering in the kitchen a sudden Philip Glass vibe.
When we moved here K worked freelance, says Blackbird as she stuffs unironed damask napkins through her gorgeous Pier 1 beaded napkin rings, he cooked for us all the time.
He made bread a couple of times a week, he made his own croissants, and there was always something amazing waiting for us at dinner each night....Her voice trails off.
They share the cooking now which occasionally leads to small power struggles, literally, as they often battle for their favorite electric outlet near the toaster.
Like artists, perhaps starving artists, bb and K build their meals around tried and true recipes.
Will you be treated to the Chicken Mole? Maybe on Cinco De Mayo.
Might you be indulged with K's memorable Chicken in Tarragon Cream?
Do they only make chicken for dinner parties?
Of course not, you silly...
They do pasta all the time.
We never make the pasta ourselves, though, Blackbird sighs - I can't stand the mess...
As you peer around their small, dimly lit rooms, you can see that K has submitted to bb's crazy ideas about decorating.
The mantle is bedecked with glass containers of many sizes, each filled with black beans.
Some of them have tiny candles lit in them.
And the kitchen is a reflection of each of them too...
Each cabinet holds a story, bb tells us. She is wearing an outfit of her own design, part Old Navy with a touch of Hermes and a splat of the aforementioned sausage meat.
Things here are attached to a life...Oldest brought this very pasta with him when he moved back home last winter...but he's gone again.
As they sit down to eat, Blackbird lovingly spoons the sauce into a Crate and Barrel pitcher they purchased together, when the one they got as an engagement gift started looking a little 'dinged up.'
It will be a memorable evening.
As memorable as twelve dollar wine.
*link
And certainly international.
Their dear friends C and M have lived in New York City, London, Paris and Chicago before settling in Tuvalu. M travels all the time and does something with money and investments for a living, Blackbird can never remember exactly what.
As for the C's, well no one really knows what Mr. C does - computer stuff? Who knows.
Mrs. C works for a chocolate company...they all know that.
Everyone is wearing their shoes.
While Blackbird would love for her dinner guests to 'pad about in cloven foot socks,' she pretty much figures, with a dog in the house (who never even wipes her feet upon entry), that the floors are dirty anyway.
And what kind of hostess would she be if she asked her guests to leave their shoes on the porch?
Perhaps if the leaf-blowing guys could find the time before Christmas to clean up their front lawn, bb (as we all love to call her) would give up her frantic OCD-like tendency to pick leaves out of the carpets...but we've digressed.
Blackbird, who flutters about the kitchen, hoping no one will notice the sausage meat on the backsplash, appears unfazed.
Her husband gladly welcomes their dinner guests and accepts their gifts of wine -
he circles around his wife to pour drinks and distract their company from the cd player which is stuck skipping on a track of Yo-Yo Ma, giving the gathering in the kitchen a sudden Philip Glass vibe.
When we moved here K worked freelance, says Blackbird as she stuffs unironed damask napkins through her gorgeous Pier 1 beaded napkin rings, he cooked for us all the time.
He made bread a couple of times a week, he made his own croissants, and there was always something amazing waiting for us at dinner each night....Her voice trails off.
They share the cooking now which occasionally leads to small power struggles, literally, as they often battle for their favorite electric outlet near the toaster.
Like artists, perhaps starving artists, bb and K build their meals around tried and true recipes.
Will you be treated to the Chicken Mole? Maybe on Cinco De Mayo.
Might you be indulged with K's memorable Chicken in Tarragon Cream?
Do they only make chicken for dinner parties?
Of course not, you silly...
They do pasta all the time.
We never make the pasta ourselves, though, Blackbird sighs - I can't stand the mess...
As you peer around their small, dimly lit rooms, you can see that K has submitted to bb's crazy ideas about decorating.
The mantle is bedecked with glass containers of many sizes, each filled with black beans.
Some of them have tiny candles lit in them.
And the kitchen is a reflection of each of them too...
Each cabinet holds a story, bb tells us. She is wearing an outfit of her own design, part Old Navy with a touch of Hermes and a splat of the aforementioned sausage meat.
Things here are attached to a life...Oldest brought this very pasta with him when he moved back home last winter...but he's gone again.
As they sit down to eat, Blackbird lovingly spoons the sauce into a Crate and Barrel pitcher they purchased together, when the one they got as an engagement gift started looking a little 'dinged up.'
It will be a memorable evening.
As memorable as twelve dollar wine.
*link
Comments
Or did my invitation get lost in the mail?!!
Sorry that I have to ask, it's just, you know, I live a long way away.
Great post, BB
Oh dear.
Surely it wasn't for real, was it?
LOVE your version.
Preeee-ten-tious. AND Boooooooo-ring.
However, I am in awe of her "doily-like headscarf, suggestive of... Vermeer."
You go girl. Rock that doily.
RESPEK!!
And I bet YOU would look fetching in a doily.
I would also like you to know that I too embroidered MY entire couch by hand as well. Not that you can see it under the dirt and oatmeal and crushed Cheerios...