Trying too hardo

When will I learn!? I wanted to fix a special celebratory dinner for a good friend, her fiance, and her fiance's brother. Menu planning was complicated by the fact that the brother is a vegetarian, the engaged couple is on a strict diet (I'm diabetic) and none of them drink wine.

I spent several hours reviewing recipes, ingredient by ingredient, trying to come up with good stuff that people could eat. Plus, I was to go to a potluck the night before. The potluck was easy. I made a goat cheese and fig tart that is always wonderful (and which I was pretty sure people on diets would not eat). I brought the leftovers home just so I'd have one more option for my three guests.

The 'starter' dish -- big mushroom caps filled with cheese dip -- was awful. I'm deleting the recipe from my computer. I wish I had deleted it from the menu.

It did get a little better. I served a bare-naked salad with a vinaigrette dressing I had made. That was okay. The leftover tart pretty much disappeared. But I created a butternut squash 'crumble' that had too much 'crumble' and am left with leftovers that I will be eating for a *#!* week. The roasted beets were appreciated. The non-vegetarians liked the baked fish. And the dessert-- strawberries covered with pureed raspberries was a hit. Are you counting? That's SEVEN separate dishes. That's crazy.

They drank Peligrino water and tea. I had a big glass of wine when they left ... and the last piece of tart because I was hungry.

It wasn't just the food. I had picked out CDs I thought they would like and was asked to turn down the volume. The fiance's brother got down on the floor to check out my book titles and asked how I liked Chaos, which I read 20 years ago and couldn't remember anything about. So I flunked that one -- the book is obviously a favorite of his.

Everyone left before 8:30. I had half hoped that the fiance's brother might find me interesting. Don't think that's a possibility. Ah well.

At least I won't have to cook for a while -- like a week.

Ah well indeed.