Ana was coming for dinner and to watch a movie. I had had a rather elaborate zucchini-centric menu planned, but then the preceding evening at work had been so horrific (only a very slight exaggeration) that I was in a semi-zombie state till well after noon, and there was not time to fix what I had planned. The challenge had been to make zucchini dishes that would please the less than enthusiastic zucchini eater. I think that Ana, who is not a real zucchini aficionado, was relieved to hear that things were not going well with my original scheme. Since I got such a late start, I decided to save my giant zucchini for another day. I started with dessert, and thought an almond cake would be nice. About that time, Rachael called and said she wanted to come to dinner as well. That would be great, I said. She too was glad to hear that I had abandoned the zucchini-fest idea. Then Dakki called and wanted to come. Well, that would be fine, I said. The guest list was expanding, and so was my menu, which continued to morph throughout the day. As I was toasting the almonds for the cake, I got a little distracted.
You can see the result of that. Hmmmm, this day was not going at all as planned. I retoasted the almonds – I guess I should more accurately say that I toasted new almonds – added and then rejected several other potential menu items, and miraculously had a fairly presentable dinner ready almost on time. Then another guest arrived, and she was not quite as welcome the first three, who demanded that I take her outside. Rachael was giving me advice about how to accomplish this and flustered me so that our little arachnoid guest escaped my grasp and nearly ran up Dakki’s leg, producing shrieks from three sides and grumbles from me. I eventually got her outside with all her eight legs intact, happily for everyone, and especially happily for her.
Query: Why is everyone so against zucchini? And spiders? Spiders perform valuable public services and bring good luck as well.
3 comments:
I love zucchini! Always fun to read a saga of one of your dinners in the making with all the pitfalls along the way. Very fun!
Bianca's new sentence just recently - "I don't like spiders"
I love zucchini, too! I've never seen such a big round one--though we've grown a couple that could be used as baseball bats.
My husband would have done the same with the spider--about the only insect he kills is mosquitoes. It must have been a lovely meal.
I think it's wonderful that people just call you up and invite themselves over for dinner--it says a lot for you.
I probably would have really enjoyed the burnt almonds!
I too like zucchini although we call it courgette here. Before I came to England from Australia I knew it as zucchini and did not know what the court it was. We also used a week a lot of pumpkin in Australia especially butternut pumpkin which has only just started being sold here but they call it squash. To me squash is a drink, a cordial.
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