I hosted.
I offered last year at the holiday.
Why?
I have the smallest home, the least amount of dishes and utensils – as I tell the story, my brother’s kitchen is the size of my whole apartment.
But I couldn’t back out even though I tried to drop hints to the rest of the family that i couldn’t pull it off! They didn’t fall for it, even after i let everyone know my mom was basically doing ALL the cooking! Just kidding, I cooked half of it.
I started Wednesday by cooking homemade chicken soup. Did you know my mother-in-law argued with me that it is not chicken soup cause I put a beef bone in it? She is lucky my grandmother, who’s recipe it is, was not around to handle that one cause her powers are even stronger than my “Everybody Loves Raymond” type mom-in-law!
It was one of my best soups but of course it did not have enough salt for my spouse and he says it did not achieve the DEPTH of flavor my mothers soup achieves – he has some nerve! That’s what I get for dissing his mom, the Italian Queen! Anyway, by day 2 I had achieved the jell state which is the goal of any good CHICKEN soup.
Friday I cooked 6 pounds of organic chicken cutlets, the one kosher item I can pull off. Needless to say I have 4 pounds leftover!
And as you all know me by now I bought 3 Entenmenn’s cakes and 2 large Haagen Daz ice creams, all had just gone on sale today! My back-up plan was that if my dinner was inedible then at least I could sugar them up at the end with my all you can eat make your own sundae bar!
Saturday came and we waited 4 hours to do the housecleaning so we would not have enough time to dirty up the place again. As it was my family coming to dinner everyone was 2-50 minutes late. That’s how they roll! I had exotic cheese set up to impress my buffalo mozzarella loving brother and sis-in-law. I had a truffle cheese, and exotic wine cheese and 2 pepper cheeses since the store did not have my chestnut rind cheese, my fave – they said it was flying in from Alitalia later that day. I get all my cheeses from DiPalo’s in Little Italy, the best shop ever!
I had a few other basics as well, I come from the school that you serve so much people can’t tell whats going on!
So here’s the reason we don’t host parties for people from out of Manhattan – 2 cars were at meters and the drivers had to go to the meters every hour till 6 pm to feed quarters. Sorry folks, I live here and forget that detail. My dad usually finds a spot but there was food waiting for him so he had no time to search. I guess I should start the [arty at 6 next time except I will be asleep by 830!
Luckily I asked for a consensus on my cutlets – most people wanted them parmigiana style (which in America is mozzarella style, for some reason we do not call it that!)
I thought only my nephew wanted it that way, turned out everyone did! Luckily I had bought 3 pints of sauce from Mariella pizzeria on 16th and 3rd, my fave pizza shop with the best sauce – and next time I will just cater from there as well! I made 1 side dish,. mushroom risotto, heavy as a brick but tasty when you add a ton of grated cheese! My mom brought 5 side dishes, 2 was her insistence, and most except for the latkes are leftover. I’m not cooking this week!
Now, i go to Italian Sunday dinner every week and I see how much my mother-in-law cooks and how much is eaten. My entire family must be on a diet, they ate almost nothing – and we know it can’t be my cooking, I buy all the gourmet magazines!
I had to store stuff outside in the cold on top of my air-conditioning, there is no room in the fridge!
Dessert was the piece de resistance. That is an easy one for me, 2 pounds of M&M’s, tiny marshmallows, whipped cream, marshmallow fluff, and chocolate sauce. On top of Ben& Jerry’s ice cream. And fancy chocolates all around (actually I think I may have mistakenly filled everyone up on candy as I had a plateful out since they arrived, I have to, that is my reputation!)
So far today, Sunday, no one has called to say they are sick so I consider it was a successful evening!
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