Entertaining Ad Nauseum

 

We walk this planet meeting people every day.
They seem to be nice and just like you.

They serve you coffee, bring your mail, and work at your place of employment.

They sit at your church or temple.

Your doctor, your lawyer, your MLA all good people doing their thing.

You put your trust into people as you feel they also put their trust in you.

You are all on the same page and yet we all agree that we disagree.

We read the same magazines, look at the same TV programs and listen to the same music.lol

We should be the same and yet we are different.

Life makes us different.

I like to entertain but now, not so much.
 I have come to conclude, it's easier to entertain people in public places where they can choose what they like as opposed to having a sit down meal at home.

I met a lot of nice people in my life, invited them for dinner and went out of my way to spend quite a bit of time and money to make that perfect meal.
You always put more variety as you don't know what people like to eat.
After a long hot day preparing a table, you are ready for your guests lol
One guest I had, came from Korea. Very nice man.
But he did not like me sitting at the table with him.
It was not a womans' place he said. He had to tolerate it because I am not a servant in my husbands house lol Our conversation led to women and family.
He said they prefer to have women children because after a wife is too old or not good anymore, the daughter takes over ( in his bed). My presence destroyed his day and I had to hold myself back from kicking him out of my house to be polite. lol
Another time I invited guests for 5 pm.
It was after 8 and they didn't show up. Finally they did show up after everything was spoiled, stayed five minutes, gobbled what they could and quickly left.

Another time I invited a man who looked at my full table and told me there was nothing to eat.
There was only so much of one thing he could eat in one night he said. The rest was not the kind of ethnic food he likes to eat.
On top of all that he attacked my Englebert Humperdinck. He said what a stupid song Spanish Eyes was.
For one thing, every one knows Spanish people have brown eyes not blue. lol
In shock it took a while to register, so I could explain to him the meaning of the word blue.
Blue did not mean the color blue but the feeling of being blue, sad.
This time I saw a light flicker in the mans' head as he finally put something disturbing to him, to rest.

These are only a few disasters I have had to contend with in my attempts at being a good hostess.
Other examples include people who come with allergies you don't know about.
You may have a wonderful cook book with tons of good recipes but they can't be used because of such surprises. Egg dishes are out, pasta is out, pizza is out. People like to make their own salads with their own dressings.
I came to the conclusion that although I try my best, I am never going to win, as a hostess.

There are people who invite you and buy frozen food at the store and heat it up and ask you how you like it. First of all cooking a meal is different from buying frozen. Do they really expect a truthful answer? lol

It  makes you think what a fool you are standing over a hot stove, worrying about how to make a perfect meal for special guests when they don't consider you special enough to actually make a home cooked meal for you. You always have to be  the better man, more considerate and polite or you are rude ,
It's easier to
just go to the restaurant , keep your  kitchen clean and let the cook worry about what he serves because people never complain to him and eat everything . Everything they say they can't eat at your house, they eat at the restaurant.
Funny.

I think back at all the places I went to. No matter what food I was offered for the first time, I ate it to be polite and I didn't count calories for the same reason.
After all I thought, it's not something I am forced to eat at home is it?
It costs me nothing to please a person who went out of his way to please me.
In China, my husband was offered dog meat and monkey brains. He stopped eating meat when he got home because the smell of the meat reminded him of dogs. lol but people had no food back then in China and it would have been impolite to refuse.

Then I think geez... what must people be thinking of me when I go to their home and sit longer than 5 minutes or sit at the table with the men or don't eat till I burp to be polite. lol One place they made you put in a ticket at the door for a raffle. If they picked your name you got a little present. For us, if you are part of the game it's not polite to refuse the present. For them you have to refuse the present to show humbleness so someone else could get it.
Dinners can become quite complicated.lol

Today even at home, we have problems because the schools interfere, telling kids what they should eat.

Put kids in Soccer, the coaches starve them before a game, so they run faster. If you don't eat it makes you weaker not stronger and a hungry player doesn't think as well as a player with some good energy food.
 One coach said if you lose, you buy your own meals and if you win, I buy them . In the morning it was rice crispies, lunch was subway and at night they went for a buffet. (No snacks or water after lights out. Those were fun times cause kids would sneak out and parents were on hand to give them bags of snacks and water for their rooms. )
 They were playing many games in the summer heat and kept hungry to win.
Well they won but it was no thanks to the coaches but the Mothers who fed their kids behind their backs.

I know in my time kids were all raised strong and healthy on meat potatoes vegetables cabbage porridge kolbasas bread soups. Meals were fun to eat, every one talked and listened to the stories.We had sit down meals at regular times and all curriculum revolved around family routines.
Not so today.

 My Mother mostly steamed food and never used strong spices but we also had a good 2 minute fried steak with onions and garlic waiting for us at lunch time. Salads, with lots of garlic and onions. Cabbage soup and cabbage rolls steamed in a pot with garlic and onions and tomato sauce. Hamburgers, which made todays look rather sad and you have to pay dearly for them.
Just this week I went to a place because they said: " Our hamburgers are made on charcoal ."
 I had this craving and the smell of charcoal made me lick my chops.

But when I tasted it, ok, I could taste the burnt ......whatever it was......but I swear it had no meat in it.
It tasted something like plain uncooked meat but it was thoroughly cooked.
Now, to make matters worse, restaurants today make their servers come to your table to keep asking how you like the food and in between conversation you nod yes, very good, while thinking...... this is awful.
The server trots off into the kitchen to tell the chef he has another happy customer. lol

Eventually I told my husband do they really expect a truthful answer?
Giving a truthful answer would mean getting into a fight and spoiling your outing with your friends.
The best thing is to say nothing and not go back .lol

 In our time families prepared excellent food. Today our kids come home from school and begin to dictate what they are allowed to eat. They cut out so many things, you wonder what's going to keep them healthy?
I hardly think store bought vitamins and body building whey powder from a jar is a replacement for natural food. For strong bones you need good milk not extra skim.
So it makes your shopping harder and more expensive because you need to buy two gallons of milk instead of one and then listen to lip from your kids as to why you bought the other one with fat.

Sorry but the body needs fat. You can't cut out fat altogether and expect to stay healthy.
Ok use stairs,  play tennis, join exercise groups and then go home and eat good wholesome natural food.

After listening,  ad nauseum, to your own kids complain because they learned all about food at school, you watch them walk out the door with their friends and where do they go?
McDonalds or to their friends house and pile up with spicy  and fatty food and later as they grow older ....beer lol

After a full life, I know I will never be a good hostess and so I don't need a real kitchen today .I think if people come to see you, they come to see you and not to eat. So fruit a little wine, cheese cucumber sandwiches  If the kids come home and ask what's to eat, I say I don't know, what do your friends have in their fridge lol

Makes life so much easier when you can suit yourself, just like every one else does.
:)