Dinner Guests

The other day, DH calls me on the phone to let me know that he and his partner were talking about how it had been long since we all hung out and ra ra ra (blah, blah, blah). Before he even finished talking, I saw the end coming. We were having a dinner party. Yay! No problem. I called a couple of my friends and asked them to come hang out with us. I'm always ready to host. In fact, I pride myself in the fact that I can whip up a three-course meal in 1 hour. Maybe not, but close to it. This time around, I had two and a half hours notice to work my magic. Luckily for us, I had gotten my butt out of the house at like 3 in the afternoon to go see my sister. After a scrumptious lunch of her well-seasoned, delicous grilled fish and green salad (yum!), we went to her farmer's market. The lucky part was that while I was there, I stocked up on fish, hen, brown eggs, veggies, and what not. So, by the time DH called at 5:30 to ask what I thought about having our friends over, I was all set. Or so I thought.

I got home and realized that my house wasn't 'ready'. I had shifted the lamp in the living room to my bedroom and needed a new lamp to help create a mellow ambiance. Knowing that hen takes forever to boil, I put it on low heat and jetted off to Pier 1 to get a new lamp and some votive candles. Don't try this at home, abeg. It's never that serious but I tend to take these things kinda sorta seriously. I was back in less than 30 minutes. Instead of worrying about food whenever I have dinner guests, my focus tends to be on my house. Thankfully, Allie's team had come during the week so things were relatively spotless. Also, my Martha Stewart self had made several floral arrangements so I was good in that area. I made sure they looked fresh, changed the water and cut out the wilting leaves. I sprayed the place with my home perfume from L'Occitane. Yes, my house has it's own perfume.

At the last minute, DH called to say one of our friend's girlfriend was veggie so I made a separate pot of jollof rice (without the chicken broth) for her and put some fish on the grill for her. By the time our first guests rolled around, I had made the salad, dodo, two sets of jollof rice, hen, fish, and spicy sauce (I didn't make the jollof rice too spicy in case some people couldn't handle it). I wasn't trying to be superwoman so I asked DH to grab dessert on his way home.

As much as I tried, it wasn't all that perfect because I forgot to put the wine in the refrigerator and we were short one dinner plate. What is that saying about women needing to have eight complete sets? I'm missing one plate people. Someone must have done a real to-go plate in times past. I'll have to go to Tarjay to replace it. I don't think they sell them individually. Maybe it's a sign that I should advance to the classic white china set that I've been eyeing. All in all, we had a great time and hung out until 2 in the morning swapping war stories. No casualties, thankfully. I nodded off around 2:30 to the sound of DH vacuuming the bare floor (don't ask).