The Feast
Amazing. That's how it was. The girls devised a centerpiece of gaudy fall flowers and I never realized how beautifully golden sparkling cider can be against a green brocade tablecoth. The potatoes suffered a terrible mishap (note to girls: never, under any circumstances, remove the skins from potatoes and then refridgerate them overnight without thoroughly cooking them first). However, we whipped up a rice pilaf that got rave reviews, and good old Bisquick still produces some of the best biscuits around. Finish it off with a jumble of colorful veggies (red peppers, broccoli, and sweet corn), and oh my! And let's not forget the ham, which will live in legend and song.... or the dessert: peach halves, whipped cream, dried cranberries, and dark chocolate truffles. Wow.
We had quite a mixed table, actually. Mama has been suffering from dizzy spells related to allergies, so Dad presided over a table full of young singles. Charity had brought her friend Emily home from college, and I had invited the High Queen at the last minute. Marjorie and Juli between them contributed Ned, Dan, and Jack. Then we had Nate, another bona fide member of the family.
Dad immediately raised the topic of a verse in the New Testament about husbands living with their wives in an understanding manner and what exactly the Word means by the term "weaker vessels." Yikes! The conversation camped out there for the entire meal, but I didn't really join it except to make occasional quips---I mostly kept my head down and served the food. Good thing, too; it's not safe for me to get involved in an intellectual (and potentially controversial) topic unless A) I am feeling extremely mellow, or B) I am discussing the topic with just one or two other people whom I trust absolutely, or C) both of the above.
I'll hash it over with the High Queen and (or) Brittainia later, and see what they think. Meanwhile, by the end of the feast we had all reached a state of bon homme that reminds me of a seventeenth century country house poem (praising good dinners and gentle, dignified elegance). Thinking back over it made me wonder whether I really am one of those creatures who loves luxury.
I reached the conclusion that I'm not. I like an arcadian lunch as well as a feast, and an afternoon of tramping the woods suits me as much as sitting here on a fine-grained leather couch in my study, surrounded by books and pools of classical music and lamplight. I feel like Dante's description of Fortuna---the only way to define her is as changing changes evermore.
Increasingly I love variety, variety within unity, but always variety. Tomorrow I shall want a lunch of vegetables to balance today's feast; a week hence fruit will be my whim, no doubt; and after that, who can tell? I have pleasure in all forms of artistry that have pleasure in truth, and increasingly no pleasure in any that are formed to fit a lie.
Inebriate of light, am I, and debauchee of dew... misquoting Emily Dickinson, I suppose. "Do you find it easy to get drunk on words? So easy, that I am scarcely ever sober"---and that was Dorothy Sayers.
Oh dear, I am drunk on words! Milton, Milton...
We had quite a mixed table, actually. Mama has been suffering from dizzy spells related to allergies, so Dad presided over a table full of young singles. Charity had brought her friend Emily home from college, and I had invited the High Queen at the last minute. Marjorie and Juli between them contributed Ned, Dan, and Jack. Then we had Nate, another bona fide member of the family.
Dad immediately raised the topic of a verse in the New Testament about husbands living with their wives in an understanding manner and what exactly the Word means by the term "weaker vessels." Yikes! The conversation camped out there for the entire meal, but I didn't really join it except to make occasional quips---I mostly kept my head down and served the food. Good thing, too; it's not safe for me to get involved in an intellectual (and potentially controversial) topic unless A) I am feeling extremely mellow, or B) I am discussing the topic with just one or two other people whom I trust absolutely, or C) both of the above.
I'll hash it over with the High Queen and (or) Brittainia later, and see what they think. Meanwhile, by the end of the feast we had all reached a state of bon homme that reminds me of a seventeenth century country house poem (praising good dinners and gentle, dignified elegance). Thinking back over it made me wonder whether I really am one of those creatures who loves luxury.
I reached the conclusion that I'm not. I like an arcadian lunch as well as a feast, and an afternoon of tramping the woods suits me as much as sitting here on a fine-grained leather couch in my study, surrounded by books and pools of classical music and lamplight. I feel like Dante's description of Fortuna---the only way to define her is as changing changes evermore.
Increasingly I love variety, variety within unity, but always variety. Tomorrow I shall want a lunch of vegetables to balance today's feast; a week hence fruit will be my whim, no doubt; and after that, who can tell? I have pleasure in all forms of artistry that have pleasure in truth, and increasingly no pleasure in any that are formed to fit a lie.
Inebriate of light, am I, and debauchee of dew... misquoting Emily Dickinson, I suppose. "Do you find it easy to get drunk on words? So easy, that I am scarcely ever sober"---and that was Dorothy Sayers.
Oh dear, I am drunk on words! Milton, Milton...
posted by Praelucor at 9:17 PM
2 Comments:
note to girls: never, under any circumstances, remove the skins from potatoes and then refridgerate them overnight without thoroughly cooking them first
And in my case, I shouldn't cook potatoes at all?
I love it when anything - but especially a foodstuff, like the ham - lives in legend and song.
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