Just to enhance the impression that I'm actually a five-year-old living in a 30-year-old's body, the prospect of 'entertaining' usually brings me out in a cold sweat.
Not because I dislike seeing friends and family, but because I am simply so inept at it. Whereas other people seem to have an inate ability to lay on a wonderful spread and think of those great little touches that can make an evening special, I have to practically push my brain through a sieve in order to extract any little nuggets of inspiration to help make my guests' stay a memorable one. I've improved over the years, but it doesn't come naturally and that's always rather annoyed me.
My sister, for example, is a great cook who always has a very stylishly laid table and is good at making people feel at their ease. It was a particularly splendid meal I enjoyed at her place at Christmas that prompted me to embark on a relentless assault on the kitchen this year, to finally equip myself with a few culinary skills and enable me to serve up to my guests something which doesn't look like the contents of a primary school kitchen's bin.
Last night was my first opportunity to demonstrate this fledgling but promising new approach. My father and stepmother were the unwitting test subjects and blimey, did I worry about it? Just a tad. To say I gnawed my fingernails to the knuckle as I basted the lamb every three seconds and opened the fridge every 1.5 seconds to stare my panna cottas into dust would perhaps be an overstatement, but not by very much. My fondant potatoes decided to be absolute bastards and take about twice as long to cook as they should have, giggling away as they jigged about in the water and butter, enjoying a nice spa bath while we all stood around starving to death. But eventually I got the little gits on the plate and rather tasty they were too, so I took great pleasure in mashing their little heads between my teeth, grrrr... (Is it weird to hold a grudge against food? Perhaps, but if you're that way inclined, surely it's better to want to murder your dinner than take an axe to next door's cat...)
The panna cottas were the thing though - little blancmange-style creations that you have to set in the fridge for at least an hour and hope to god they hold together when you tip them out of the mould. Mine went in three hours early. And I had emergency ice cream in the freezer, just in case they let the side down by spilling their guts all over the plate, like that android that bled white wax in Alien. The tension was unbearable as I casually cleared the table of main course plates and saundered off to the kitchen to see if these little guys would turn out to be friend or foe. Would I be stroking their little wibbly heads in ecstasy, or stamping them into the kitchen floor in a fury of culinary disappointment?
Well, they weren't going to put me out of my misery quickly. Oh no. They like to keep a girl waiting. I tentatively turned the first mould over onto the plate and waited, with bated breath. Then tapped on the mould. Then turned it. Then shook it gently. Then then shook it impatiently. Then wanged it up and down against the worktop as if I was trying to split the atom. And still they wouldn't budge. Just as the cold beads of sweat were beginning to trickle between my brows, I took the tip of a knife and gently inserted it between pudding and mould, allowing a little air to ease its way in and plop! Down onto the plate it fell, with a satisfying splat, and held itself together beautifully. Phew. We were friends and there would be no crazed dessert murder that night...
A sprinkling of icing sugar, an addition of mint leaf and a few clumsy swirls of raspberry sauce later, they emerged from the kitchen looking rather bloody fab and classy, if I do say so myself. They even prompted a request for seconds and a 'so how did you make the sauce? Might have a go at these myself...' I've often heard people talking about the joy of making others happy with food and never really understood it, but last night those empty plates and smiling faces did actually make me feel quite warm and fuzzy inside.
All in all, the evening was rather a success and although packed with lessons to be learned, I suddenly felt a lot more grown-up - I'd say at least eight and a half.
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