An excess of sociability
May. 6th, 2004 02:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pameladeanI'm hosting the Romance Exchange on Saturday and a Mother's Day dinner on Sunday. My mother, when apprised of this situation, suggested that I just make extra of everything and give her tea on Sunday as well. This won't work, though. I do mostly-vegan teas. This is especially necessary now, when all the leftovers must be capable of being eaten by somebody in the household, as a part of our being completely broke and perforce thrifty.
However, vegan tea items that generally receive praise from the actual Romance Exchange guests and also my household are generally from or influenced by Indian, Chinese, and Middle Eastern cuisine. My mother doesn't like any of those. She also dislikes beans and can only eat tofu if it's well disguised. She is perfectly happy with soy cheese, soy margarine, soy cream cheese, soy sour cream, and so on. But I don't think that these make adequate substitutes for proper tea food once one subtracts the salubrious effect of all the seasonings she doesn't like. Also David, Lydy, Raphael (the consumers of the leftovers) dislike most or all of these substitutes. I am glad that I ground to a halt amongst these contradictions (please add, for flavor, among the larger pool of people who must eat this stuff, a nut allergy, lactose intolerance, a couple of people who have to watch their cholesterol, hypertension, someone who dislikes olives, someone who dislikes nuts and raisins mixed in with anything else, be it cookie dough or a curry, a mayonnaise hater or two, several haters of anything creamy whether soy- or dairy-based, and more I have probably forgotten) before I drove myself crazy.
Anyway, I'm doubling up on one of the desserts for tea, and will serve that on Sunday, but otherwise it's far, far simpler to make two meals.
I spent most of yesterday in intensive cleaning of the downstairs. It had occurred to me that for the past few years I've been up til four a.m. on the day before the tea, madly cleaning, and that maybe I should try doing my mad cleaning on Wednesday instead. Wednesday, for a Saturday tea, is too early to make most of the food, and anyway at least one kitchen needed cleaning before food was made in it. So, the living and dining rooms are dusted, vacuumed, and mopped. I haven't got the extraneous objects out of them yet, but that is another part of my genius. Instead of trying to get people to move their stuff out, which they almost never do before Saturday morning, I just shoved everything into the dining room while I cleaned the living room, and then shoved everything back while I cleaned the dining room. This caused an empty fish tank to miraculously disappear from the dining room while I was taking a break, though it didn't dispose of the photographic equipment.
I found a few final lost objects of Eric's (we inherited his cleaning supplies and a curious miscellany of other stuff when he left in September) and waxed sentimental for a while.
I've also caught in time the fact that I was planning far too much food. I thought I had suppressed this inevitable tendency in the planning stages, but I can eliminate two items at least from the tea menu without starving anybody. The Saturday menu is much simpler and doesn't need to be edited.
When I finally went outside at sunset yesterday, with my cat on his leash, I was astonished at how warm it was. Our house heats up fast enough during a Minnesota heat wave, but one hot day doesn't dent its thermal inertia in the least. And to my great satisfaction, the air was scented as it should be, with lily-of-the-valley and the first opening flowers of the lilac.
Hovering over these domestic satisfactions and small triumphs is the miasma of Abu Ghraib. How I despise the Bush Administration. They cheated their way into power, they lied and cheated and manipulated us into this completely unnecessary war, they ignored expert opinion about the military force necessary for and the probable local consequences of invasion, they made grand noises about supporting the troops and stole support from them every chance they had, when their sorry stupid pretenses were exposed they fell back on mouthing about how we had halted the horrors of torture and rape rooms -- and now they are drawing prissy mealy meaningless distinctions between abuse and torture, and mouthing about a few bad apples. They ARE the bad apples. I hate their rotten guts. I don't see how they can walk around on their hind legs and face the light of day.
I am not interested in hearing any defense of them. Please don't post one. My rationality and tolerance are at an end. Janeane Garofalo remarked on "The Daily Show" the other night that the only remaining reason to vote Republican is a moral flaw in the person so voting. I concede in a very airy remote fashion that taken seriously this is probably unfair, but nothing any of you can say will persuade me of that at this moment. Leave it alone. Unfriend me if you must, but leave it alone. Until further notice, I am not interested in the viewpoint of anybody who would vote for George Bush.
Pamela
However, vegan tea items that generally receive praise from the actual Romance Exchange guests and also my household are generally from or influenced by Indian, Chinese, and Middle Eastern cuisine. My mother doesn't like any of those. She also dislikes beans and can only eat tofu if it's well disguised. She is perfectly happy with soy cheese, soy margarine, soy cream cheese, soy sour cream, and so on. But I don't think that these make adequate substitutes for proper tea food once one subtracts the salubrious effect of all the seasonings she doesn't like. Also David, Lydy, Raphael (the consumers of the leftovers) dislike most or all of these substitutes. I am glad that I ground to a halt amongst these contradictions (please add, for flavor, among the larger pool of people who must eat this stuff, a nut allergy, lactose intolerance, a couple of people who have to watch their cholesterol, hypertension, someone who dislikes olives, someone who dislikes nuts and raisins mixed in with anything else, be it cookie dough or a curry, a mayonnaise hater or two, several haters of anything creamy whether soy- or dairy-based, and more I have probably forgotten) before I drove myself crazy.
Anyway, I'm doubling up on one of the desserts for tea, and will serve that on Sunday, but otherwise it's far, far simpler to make two meals.
I spent most of yesterday in intensive cleaning of the downstairs. It had occurred to me that for the past few years I've been up til four a.m. on the day before the tea, madly cleaning, and that maybe I should try doing my mad cleaning on Wednesday instead. Wednesday, for a Saturday tea, is too early to make most of the food, and anyway at least one kitchen needed cleaning before food was made in it. So, the living and dining rooms are dusted, vacuumed, and mopped. I haven't got the extraneous objects out of them yet, but that is another part of my genius. Instead of trying to get people to move their stuff out, which they almost never do before Saturday morning, I just shoved everything into the dining room while I cleaned the living room, and then shoved everything back while I cleaned the dining room. This caused an empty fish tank to miraculously disappear from the dining room while I was taking a break, though it didn't dispose of the photographic equipment.
I found a few final lost objects of Eric's (we inherited his cleaning supplies and a curious miscellany of other stuff when he left in September) and waxed sentimental for a while.
I've also caught in time the fact that I was planning far too much food. I thought I had suppressed this inevitable tendency in the planning stages, but I can eliminate two items at least from the tea menu without starving anybody. The Saturday menu is much simpler and doesn't need to be edited.
When I finally went outside at sunset yesterday, with my cat on his leash, I was astonished at how warm it was. Our house heats up fast enough during a Minnesota heat wave, but one hot day doesn't dent its thermal inertia in the least. And to my great satisfaction, the air was scented as it should be, with lily-of-the-valley and the first opening flowers of the lilac.
Hovering over these domestic satisfactions and small triumphs is the miasma of Abu Ghraib. How I despise the Bush Administration. They cheated their way into power, they lied and cheated and manipulated us into this completely unnecessary war, they ignored expert opinion about the military force necessary for and the probable local consequences of invasion, they made grand noises about supporting the troops and stole support from them every chance they had, when their sorry stupid pretenses were exposed they fell back on mouthing about how we had halted the horrors of torture and rape rooms -- and now they are drawing prissy mealy meaningless distinctions between abuse and torture, and mouthing about a few bad apples. They ARE the bad apples. I hate their rotten guts. I don't see how they can walk around on their hind legs and face the light of day.
I am not interested in hearing any defense of them. Please don't post one. My rationality and tolerance are at an end. Janeane Garofalo remarked on "The Daily Show" the other night that the only remaining reason to vote Republican is a moral flaw in the person so voting. I concede in a very airy remote fashion that taken seriously this is probably unfair, but nothing any of you can say will persuade me of that at this moment. Leave it alone. Unfriend me if you must, but leave it alone. Until further notice, I am not interested in the viewpoint of anybody who would vote for George Bush.
Pamela
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no subject
Date: 2004-05-06 01:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-06 01:30 pm (UTC)But in the last week... "That man has lost his mind," has morphed into an incredulous, "That man is out of his f****ing gourd!" Oy. Is Ralph Nadar running?
no subject
Date: 2004-05-06 01:38 pm (UTC)(P.S. I wouldn't vote for George W. if my life depended on it, so it's okay to respond to me. :) )
no subject
Date: 2004-05-06 01:40 pm (UTC)I hate to think of so many people bleeding off to Canada. May the necessity not arise.
Pamela
no subject
Date: 2004-05-06 01:48 pm (UTC)My mother, by request, is getting vegetarian spaghetti with ciabatta rolls from the New French Bakery (they were incredibly cheap and I hope they're okay, but everything else from that place is fine), a salad, maybe some steamed broccoli, and a fruit cobbler of some sort.
The tea people are getting, probably:
Vegan Chocolate Silk Pie -- everybody likes this, which is a miracle
Gingerbread
Fruit cobbler or something like it
Whipped cream for dairy eaters
-- that's for sweets.
And first, for savories, I think:
Baked spring rolls
Vegan spanakopita (in a 9x13pan, not individually wrapped)
Tahini-vegetable spread
An array of vegetables and greens, and bread and crackers -- I forget who first invented giving people sandwich makings rather than painfully putting together dozens of little sandwiches, but I bless her name
(canned) Salmon salad, with balsamic vinegar and olive oil and good stuff
Samosa Pie
Mushroom "quiche"
Whole-wheat scones, one batch with butter and one with margarine
Oh dear, that doesn't look like enough. I'd better go make it rather than adding stuff to the list.
Pamela
no subject
Date: 2004-05-06 01:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-06 01:53 pm (UTC)if a person feels a need to argue with me about whether or not we're currently up to one on that count, please send it to kalmn at livejournal dot com rather than cluttering up pamela's lj.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-06 01:57 pm (UTC)to combine to two subjects of this post: i threw a '7 deadly sins' themed party a couple months ago... we added the 8th deadly sin, republicanism, to the mix. each sin had a(t least one) representational food... for republicanism (and avarice - it was a double duty food) we made a green sheet cake and decorated it like a dollar bill... put bush's face on it (as best i could with frosting, anyway), made it for the amount of the deficit, and wrote 'in oil we trust.' and then we got to chop it up into little pieces. it was very therapeutic.
That's quite enough
Date: 2004-05-06 02:06 pm (UTC)Anyway, as one of the tea drinkers, I can say positively that the menu is just fine as it is. And I'm not allergic to anything edible.
;-)
JM
in re: the OTHER topic. My mother left the Republicans during the first Bush administration and I just discovered that ALL my Texas relatives are agin GW. It makes conversation much more comfortable.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-06 02:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-06 02:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-06 02:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-06 02:12 pm (UTC)I will NOT start commenting on how frosting seems to me the perfect medium to do Bush's face in. He's not responsible for his face, just for what's behind it.
But hee.
Pamela
no subject
Date: 2004-05-06 02:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-06 02:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-06 02:42 pm (UTC)We're not having our party until June, and the down side is that this gives me a month to fret about what there will be and whether it will be enough and how many people will come and how many of them will RSVP (because I've never done this here before) and all sorts of other fretful things.
Luckily (?), my parents' and grandparents' impending arrival combined with the slow departure of the stupid virus has pushed other fretting out of my mind. Mostly. Sort of.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-06 02:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-06 02:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-06 03:04 pm (UTC)At least my husband, while more conservative than I, is equivalently disgusted with Dubya's administration. I'm not sure I'd be able to talk to him otherwise. Thankfully.
I hate being a cynic who is constantly shown that things are actually worse than she thought they would get even with pessimistic estimates. I really do.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-06 03:33 pm (UTC)Pamela
Re: That's quite enough
Date: 2004-05-06 03:35 pm (UTC)Of course it sounds like enough to you. To any sane person, it's more than enough. I'm just going through That Phase.
I'm relieved to hear that your relatives have some sense.
Pamela
no subject
Date: 2004-05-06 03:35 pm (UTC)Pamela
no subject
Date: 2004-05-06 03:36 pm (UTC)As for our beerless bleater--well. Everything I want to say would go into my FBI file, so I'm keeping my mouth shut.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-06 03:36 pm (UTC)He assembled that rats' nest, anyway.
Pamela
no subject
Date: 2004-05-06 03:48 pm (UTC)