Diary of a Fall-Apart Feast
The makings of last night's dinner party
This post will be short on analysis and long on food description, partly because we spent Saturday preparing for a feast with friends, and spent most of today recovering from the undertaking. Especially because both my partner and I work from home, hosting dinners is one of our most intensely social experiences, and between cooking, cleaning, and generally being ready to make everything look easy and effort-free, it takes a full day to come down from the high of it all. Yet this feast was a perfect reminder of why dinner parties are worth hosting: when the niceties of the meal start to fall apart, and hospitality truly takes over.
Long before any of us had opened a bottle of wine, the tone of the meal had already been set. Because this was a big celebration feast—for wedding anniversaries and milestone birthdays past and forthcoming—we knew we wanted to go big, and in August found an expert on what we wanted to offer: a whole spit-roasted lamb. Our expert for the day, Sophia, arrived around 10am to set up for the long cooking time, and within an hour the heady scent of smoldering charcoal already filled the air. Once the lamb—stuffed with halved lemons, bouquets of rosemary, and heads of garlic—started turning, the odor of smoke was quickly replaced by the rich aroma of roasting meat. Just as people started arriving around 4pm, Sophia sliced off scraps with crispy glistening skin for a first taste, which the guests quickly scooped up with their fingers. As the lamb got closer and closer to completion, cloves of roasted garlic began to fall from the carcass, like roses shedding their petals.
As she began to carve up the meat, we gathered up our aluminum pans of prepared vegetables—grilled leeks, cauliflower, asparagus, and zucchini; bowls of crispy broccoli and soft bell peppers, slabs of roasted eggplant and roasted potatoes—and spread them on one of two tables in the backyard. On the other, bowls of muhammara, hummus, and whipped feta from our favorite Armenian grocer, with a basket of torn pita and Barbari bread alongside it. (Also, a few plates of store-bought spanakopita and pigs in blankets, because my tastes will never be evolved so far as to disdain the best party food ever.) We covered the tables with spice containers stuffed with fairy lights, scraps of burlap, and jars of herbs and flowers cut from the garden. The plates were paper, the cutlery plastic, and the wine glasses recyclable, but it still felt homespun.
The crowd was a mixed group from across our lives—neighborhood folks with kids, old chums from past cities and jobs, family and friends who knew us well enough to turn up even with the on- and off-again rain. (Weather is never certain, but a promised meal at our house always is.) Once the platter of sliced lamb arrived, we huddled beneath the tent, filled our plates with food, and filled the yard with chatter. Everything was eaten, even the last-minute cabbage dish thrown together that morning. (A big hit, vindicating my party-planning neurosis that I was overdoing it.) Some kids kicked balls around in one corner while others scrambled up the stairs inside to do puzzles on the living room rug. Adults took shifts as childminders and as conversation-holders, and the scraps left on kid plates soon became grown-up second helpings. Our lamb expert packed up, but not before leaving us bones (and the lamb head) for stock, and a moment for a round of applause.
One glass of wine became many, and eventually, the light began to fade. We brought out two trays of apple crisp and vanilla ice cream, and containers of chocolate-covered graham crackers and sea salt caramels. As families peeled off to meet overdue bedtimes, the half-finished bottles of wine moved from the drinks station to the table, and nuggets of scraps of meat, bread, and chocolate were nibbled with one’s fingers, forks long abandoned and pleasure foregrounded. By 8:30, what was once a cacophony of kid shouts and adult asides turned into a grown-up dinner party at last, its decreased volume somehow enriched by contrast. Though our forearms were sticky with drips of ice cream and our lips ringed with red wine, no one bothered with napkins. Whether or not we said so, we delighted in the disarray of the semi-darkness.
Recommendation: The elements of this meal were at least partially inspired by the great two-volume collection of essays and interviews titled My Last Supper by the journalist and photographer Melanie Dunea. By asking renowned chefs and food personalities, “What would be your last meal?” and in doing so coaxing rhapsodies of appreciation (and recipes) from each, Dunea unlocked something essential about each of her subjects. It’s especially revealing when reading entries from those beloved (Jacques Pépin, dining on everything from beluga caviar to “a perfect plump hot dog”), disgraced (Mario Batali, washing everything down with “A sea of icy limoncello”), and gone far too soon (Anthony Bourdain, who also wrote the book’s introduction, requesting roast bone marrow with parsley and caper salad and a perfect Guinness.) A truly wonderful read.
The Perfect Bite: Truly, that lamb was the best thing all week, and we owe it entirely to Sophia at Eat at Aiello’s. If you’re in the greater Massachusetts area and you’re even the slightest bit inclined to host a catered event, please look her up. She was a joy to work with, and made the experience a total delight from start to finish.
Cooked & Consumed: Believe it or not, we actually cooked breakfast for friends this morning—pancakes, eggs, bacon, fruit, and a batch of these apple-cheddar scones from Smitten Kitchen (by way of Bill Yosses & Melissa Clark). I’m not much of a baker, so I’m happy to default to whatever Deb Perelman endorses via SK, even if it means hauling out a stand mixer before I’ve even had a cup of coffee. These scones were great and extremely easy to whip up; my only tweak would be to add a bit of chopped herbs (rosemary or sage) to up the savory factor for a future bake.