Dinner Parties and Disaster Avoidance

Chuck Norris will cook you a really, really mean lasagna.

The Kleinette is really the chef of the couple; at best I'm somewhere between "sous-chef" and "that gangly kid from Ratatouille." But I do like to help as best I can, and I have a couple thoughts about preparing a dinner party like last night's, when the most important things can be not to promote good outcomes but avoid the worst possible outcomes and let the fun build more organically:

-> Don't panic. This is the most important thing. Last night, midst-lasagna prep, the Kleinette realized she had forgotten the ricotta with no time to get more. Oh noes! But fortunately she remembered a recepie for bechamel sauce.Whew. But she was so frazzled from her nearly screwing up she nearly screwed up the bechamel. Oh noes! The key is not to cook on tilt and not let your mistakes lead to more mistakes. Once the Kleinette and I were making ravioli, only to discover that we really screwed the proverbial pooch and we ended up with a pot full of boiling water and cheese. Lame. Fortunately, we decided to just let it boil, leaving behind a delicious cheese sauce that we poured over fettuccine. Yum! We almost ruined the whole evening but salvaged it into something delicious.

-> DIY activities are fun. One of the Kleinette's friends was a bartender. We let her mix the drinks (good call on our part). Rather than watch a movie in the conventional sense, we put on a goofy 80s action flick (Chuck Norris FTW) and played upbeat, fun music beneath it. We alternated between a homemade MST3K-style roasting of the events on-screen and drifting off into conventional conversation. Actually sitting and watching a movie outside a theater setting would've been too anti-social, but just sitting around and expecting conversation to materialize can sometimes be a bit too demanding and awkward, even if everyone knows everyone else. A relaxed group activity is the best compromise.

All told, we had a fun Friday night. And, yes, Edy's Double-Churned Ice Cream is pretty delicious...and would explain why the Kleiner is finding his old jeans a tad constricting lately. :P
-The Kleiner