Some Old Dogs Forget Their Tricks

“Had you even noticed that we are having 15 people to brunch on Sunday?” had no sooner come out of my mouth than I realized that this was not the best way to gain my husband’s help in this joint venture.

I am rather Type A when it comes to entertaining – looking for recipes, thinking about table decorations, making time lines well in advance. My husband always carries his weight, but he’s just not as anal about his approach. Inevitably before a big “event” there is this clash as I vent my frustration over the time I have put in and we sit down and figure out what it is that he is going to do.

Tomorrow’s brunch is the result of our contribution to the Temple Micah Auction. The people who are coming are all friends who are coming primarily with the idea of socializing, not because they expect a gourmet meal. So do you think for once I could just make some coffee and put out a platter of lox and bagels and call it brunch? Not for a minute! We’re having smoked salmon-goat cheese strata, baby lamb chops, a tomato-mozzarella-basil salad, sliced strawberries, and desserts contributed by a couple of seniors who are good cooks. We’ll have OJ with or without champagne, a crisp white wine, coffee and iced green tea with mint.

The best news of all is that Kate is coming over in the morning to help get things ready. It will be so nice to have another pair of hands to do all those last-minute things that inevitably come up. My one step in the right direction was to choose the strata, which can be assembled a day ahead (and has been), as opposed to the last brunch where we had eggs Benedict made to order. Were we really crazy?

Anyway, despite my erratic start on this joint project, we are once again a team effort. I do love this husband of mine who stands up for his rights but never holds grudges.

We are promised a beautiful sunny cool day tomorrow, so brunch will take place on our newly stained deck.

The only other snag in this event is that my husband is picking up Israeli house guests who are arriving at National Airport at 1:00. So maybe I’ll just have to tap Kate into a continuing role as host to cover while he is gone to the airport. At least I didn’t deal with this little wrinkle with so much hostility!