The Dinner Party

Ah, entertaining! We don't do it often enough. When we do, we tend to go a wee bit overboard, so the idea of doing it regularly is a tad overwhelming. Invariably, I forget to bring in the cucumber salad. This time I remembered the salad, but forgot the cookies. My beautiful, beautiful cookies. 

The efforts came out (mostly) so pretty I had to take pictures. 

Ma's pan-cooked salmon, which is how she makes it every week for Shabbos. It was served with a dip composed of mayo, dried dill, and a few cloves of roasted garlic, as well as the almost forgotten cucumber salad and my niece's favorite, tomato salad. 

This one you know already, the Spanish eggplant dip. It was brought out together with the fish, then lingered on the table all night long.

Chicken soup, of course. It's a basic tenet of the faith.

The veal chops were a success, despite being accidentally over-simmered. (The trick is that fish should err on the side of undercooked, while meat can braise away.) It was made by hobbling together a few googled recipes for "pan-cooked veal chops with mushrooms"—by us, meat doesn't get put into the oven unless absolutely necessary. 

For our heimishe guests, out came the old country: kaposztás tészta (cabbage and noodles). However, my local store did not have—gasp—the large square egg lukshen that is tészta (Manischewitz definitely makes 'em), so bow ties were used instead. (Mind, if it wasn't for company, I would have reached for the whole-wheat pasta.)

The other main was my new, improved love, stuffed pepper (töltött paprika). It's so photogenic, I don't know which shot came out pepper—I mean better. Aren't they gorgeous? Or is it just me?

This ended up being more for me than for the guests, but I didn't mind. It was a pleasure to eat it.

Other sides that I neglected to photograph were pan-roasted vegetables (carrots, parsnip, and Brussels sprouts), cauliflower kugel (which stays so stubbornly bland I ended up chucking in nutritional yeast and a head of roasted garlic for flavor, and it totally worked), oven-roasted beets that no one ate (although they were so amazingly sweet! Without any sweetener added!), sautéed sugar snap peas with shallots and sun-dried tomato. 

Dessert was the forgotten cookies, macadamia nuts (the KING of the nuts!), brownie topped with cashew cream (also hammered together from a multitude of recipes). 

Yeah, we totally made too much. No worries, we lived on it for the next week and change. 

The Decorators of the Soul

To get myself in the proper yuntiff state of mind, I've been hearkening to various shiurim; one, by Rabbi Stauber, was addressing the difficulties some have with the concept of "hiddur mitzvah."

I was puzzled. Why should anyone feel pompous by practicing hiddur mitzvah? Then I realized: I'm Hungarian. Our whole lives are hiddur.

As my social studies teacher in 6th grade (a frum woman of Polish heritage) taught my class, an example of a stereotype is, for instance, that Hungarians have chandeliers in their bathrooms.

Darn tootin'. We matter-of-factly beautify the mundane. How much more so the sacred? 

I was once listening to an Esther Wein shiur, and she brings an Arizal: Hashem created the whole world, and within every culture and nation there is an aspect that Jews can learn to better serve Hashem. 

As the granddaughter of Rabbi Schwab, she mentioned the German meticulousness, which can be applied in how mitzvos are kept—in careful detail. 

Well, Hungarians decorate. 

Setting the table for Shabbos, for instance. My father's cousin came for a visit, and he and Ma had a passionate discussion on the art of tablecloths. (His wife, while a fellow Magyar, was not concerned with such matters.) He eagerly soaked up Ma's prowess of ideal weight and measurements. 

While I do share a house with the best cook I have ever come across (I have had much exposure to other chefs, and she has yet to be outclassed), the success of a Shabbos meal, is, oddly, less in the food, more in the presentation.

As Ma decrees, three factors: 

1)   Beautiful dishes.

2)  Beautiful flowers. 

 

3)  Gracious hostess. 

Couldn't resist.

There's a reason why I'm currently sitting on a trousseaux of Lenox, snatched up piece by discounted piece in Homegoods. Dishes are a long-term investment, and if one buys a reliable brand that doesn't chip they will be around—looking pretty—for years to come. (Cutting back on a few food items from takeout or the deli section will cover the cost quite quickly.)

As for flowers, they don't have to be expensive to be lovely. Carnations, for instance, aren't pricey and can last as long as two weeks. But then, it is also imperative to own a lovely glass vase to put them into.

 

Ta's esrog this year? The fairest of them all.    

Girls' Night

Being a dinner hostess doesn't only involve cooking, it also involves seating. After careful analysis, Ma and I have concluded that to ensure a good time for all, men have to sit together with the men while women cluster with the women. 

 

Men and women have different interests. Men like to jab a grubbeh finger about some lomdus, or pontificate about those Mets; women like to swap information about recipes, shoes, book selections, etc.

When there's gender segregation, conversation just flows so much better. When they are alternately seated, it limits the range of topics. How many subjects, after all, appeal to both females and males? 

Prior to the release of her book, Primates of Park Avenue, Wednesday Martin's "Poor Little Rich Women" was featured an Op-Ed. Most of the readership, like me, was unaware that she was plugging her product, and that she intentionally composed the article with potentially offensive judgements. 

In the posh neighborhoods of the Upper East Side host families with distinct traditional roles, Martin disapprovingly observed. Men brought home the bacon; women spent the bacon. Not only that, these glamazon STAHMs spent a lot of time with each other, hubbies excluded. 

But as my inner anthropologist quickly realized, there was the undeniable fact of their cloistering from men. . .

“It’s easier and more fun,” the women insisted when I asked about the sex segregation that defined their lives.

“We prefer it,” the men told me at a dinner party where husbands and wives sat at entirely different tables in entirely different rooms. . . 

The worldwide ethnographic data is clear: The more stratified and hierarchical the society, and the more sex segregated, the lower the status of women.

As a Jewish woman, I was offended by that last statement. Enough comments have been made about the separation of the Jewish sexes that I know the outer world finds us sexist. Gender apartheid, if you will. 

I, personally, enjoy it when I attend a large social gathering and I am safely parked with other females. Recently I attended a mixed-seating simcha and I was miserable. The table was silent, except for the occasional lame attempt at wit that made our mutual misery even more obvious. Girls together, alone, would ask about the others' gorgeous shades of lipstick; guys would chat about . . . well, I'm not really sure what they chat about. All I usually see is a lot of back slapping.

As for shul, I happen to feel very self-conscious in an insitution where the mechitza is on the skimpy side and prayer is all on the same level. How can I throw myself into davening if I am frantically wondering if the back of my tights are visible when I bow during Shmoneh Esrei?

The Art of Will Deutsch

If that whole Venus-Mars thing is somewhat legit, why shouldn't fellow Venusians and Martians catch up while at a party? They're going home with their spouses anyway; they're still each other's primary relationship.