Conversations: Strangers and Blind Dates

"I agree with Mary Bennet," said no Jane Austen reader ever but I am going to say it just this once. Elizabeth may have been the spunky heroine that girls relate to but Mary had her own wisdom to impart. "I think a ball is a completely irrational way of making new acquaintance. It would be better if conversation, rather than dancing, were the order of the day." Lest my dancer friends spurn me at this juncture, let me say I am not against dancing as a rule - I find it both meaningful in its artistic expression and effective in its ability to generate chemistry between men and women. But that is not my topic today or in the coming weeks. I want to start a conversation about the value of conversation.

If you were to ask me what I look for in friends or men I date, good conversation would top my list. Which makes me sound very old fashioned. Which I'm fine with. In this, I will keep company with Mary - maybe after some good conversation I may succeed in making her smile.

My favorite people are those who I've enjoyed couch conversations with or long cross-country drives. Life is at its fullest in these moments. Every conversation is a unique expression of who we are and how our experiences and perspectives relate to the other people in the conversation. Dialogue is a two-way street - I contribute and I receive. And I am known.

On a recent business trip to Nashville, I ventured out to a highly-rated restaurant, Husk. Not wanting to monopolize an entire table, I found a seat at the bar next to a middle-aged woman, also dining solo. After an hour of divine Southern cuisine and libations prepared by our blur-of-a-bartender, we were no longer strangers. Our conversation ran toward the venturing of grown children into new cities and career paths. We talked about California's water problems and trends in online dating. I found some NPR stories I'd been listening to made for quality drop-ins.

Lessons from my Mom's Kitchen: Staples

When it comes to pearls of wisdom that my mom bestowed on me, one of the best was to never try a new dish when company was coming over. It makes sense - because Murphy's Law is a real thing. Probability of errors or just plain ol' disaster increases in circumstances when I'd like to deliver perfection.

Mom repeated this wisdom often during my childhood on through to adulthood. And I have by and large ignored it. Which makes me the town idiot.

Lessons from my Mom's Kitchen: The Casserole

My mom has a recipe library. Recipes collected from friends and magazines and cookbooks over the past thirty-five years since she married my dad. She credits recipes with helping her take the leap from "heating soup, pouring cereal, or making a sandwich" to feeling at home and inspired in the kitchen. The recipe library is organized, every food category within easy reach.

I grew up in that kitchen with those recipes - we enjoyed executing what others had tested to publishable perfection. Take baking, which is more science than art ... recipes ensure that breads rise and cookies hold together properly. When I'm entertaining, I have confidence in trying something new when I have a trusted recipe source to lean on. We like recipes.

But then there was the moment my mom discovered a world apart from recipes - a world called casseroles.

Before I tell you about this moment, I think the term "casserole" has fallen out of vogue in the last decade or so and deserves a reintroduction. The etymology is from the French word for saucepan. The modern concept of "casserole" was developed in the late 1800s to describe a savory mixture of rice and meats, and evolved to describe a one-dish meal that became popular in America in the 1950s. What I'm saying is it's part of our American heritage and we should not dismiss it as plain jane kitchen fare.

So back to my mom's kitchen...

Lessons from my Mom's Kitchen: Mise en place

My mom is a cosmopolitan soul residing in a SoCal woman's body. Her Southern accent sends my imagination sweeping into a Carolina dining room or a day at the races in Virginia. While she doesn't strickly speaking speak French, to hear her pronounce most words en francais is to assume she spent years abroad in Paris. And together our varieties of British dialects, culled from hours of BBC TV and movies, call to mind a tea room fit for a Queen's service. Somewhere between her Southern gentility, French connection, and English orderliness is my mother's commitment to mise en place, putting everything in it's place. In her kitchen this means washing, chopping, measuring and otherwise prepping ingredients for a dish so that the execution of it is fairly seemless. It also extends to setting the table the night before or morning of a dinner party, setting out serving dishes and making sure the bathroom is neat so there isn't a flurry of "last-minuteness".  These are habits I'm thankful were ingrained early on - it comes as second nature to me in my own home and makes hosting much, much easier.

Closing Up Summer@No41

According to the calendar, fall doesn't start for another few weeks but in my world that season is measured more by the start of the school term and the word "September" than the weather or calendar date. Summer@No41 brought with it some truly memorable evenings and the milestone of 100 guests at the table.

With Labor Day behind us, the labors of the fall are in full swing. And my coping methods for stress are kicking in. We all have coping methods...the fact that it's a widely understood word pairing proves it. I wish my method was the practiced ability to hunker down with extreme focus and get the thing done so as to desist coping and move on to the next thing.  Sadly that is not how I'm wired. I procrastinate. Which truth be told is not a method so much as a lack of one, another activity entirely. And while I am procrastinating, I daydream. And lately that dreaming has been about opening a restaurant.

Summer@No41

I lived in Chicago for two years. Which means I lived through two winters, which was one too many. (For the record, I would not have lived through the Winter of 2013-2014.) It was because of those two years that I understand what a "season" actually is, because no, we do not have them in California. California is a perpetually confused (though beautiful) state. When I experienced my first spring, I cried. I was the slightly deranged SoCal girl who was sure the world would never be reclaimed from Jadis. And then there it was. The first green leaf. Spring Green. Crayola nailed that color...bright and untarnished, roots reaching out of packed soil to meet the sun...sorry, momentary poetic sidebar. I was in wonder. And though I experienced it as an extreme, I am quite certain most citizenry of the upper swath of North America share this moment with each other every year.

There are all sorts and lengths of the more proverbial  "seasons of life", though they seem to follow nature's seasons often enough. The poetry is famously captured in Ecclesiastes 3, which everyone knows either from Sunday School, the Byrds, or Footloose. There is a time to let things be, a time to hunker down and get a job done, and a time to lift your head up and realize you are missing from your life. And so I have been for four months. Anyone else? It is time for a return to the table @No41. Game nights. Full stomachs. Unexpected conversation topics.

I hope to see many of you @No41 in the coming weeks and months. Feel free to invite yourself over, even at a moment's notice. (Which will keep me honest about my cleaning habits which is a perk.) And I hope you will likewise think about what door you can open, what table you can meet at, what summer holds for you.

To start us off, this is my new go-to salad, compliments of Smitten Kitchen. Healthy with a surprisingly flavorful freshness that seems to hit a diversity of palates just right. It's already made two appearances this past month and it's due for several more.

If Saint Valentine Came to Dinner

I love the "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" tradition ... whether real or imagined, the idea of having specific men and women across the table from you creates fascinating scenarios. So in honor of the holiday, I wonder what it would be like if Saint Valentine came to dinner at No41.

After introductions at the door, I'd start with the obvious tour of modern-day appliances and technology. Since Val (which he insists I call him though it seems very disrespectful) was martyred for his faith back in the third century, he probably isn't up on all the contemporary world has to offer. What Pandora station would he prefer? Gregorian chant? A little after his time but probably more familiar than Mumford and Sons. I'd probably stick with a simple "meat and vegetables" kind of meal to put my time-traveling guest at ease, accompanied by a bottle of Chianti (from his supposed country of origin).

What I know of Val is insubstantial. There are many legends surrounding his life, none of which have been authenticated with any accuracy. He was likely a bishop in the early church, when it was under intense persecution from the Roman Empire. There's a story of his being arrested for marrying Christian couples. There's also a story of a judge asking him to restore the sight of his blind daughter; the miracle was followed by the conversion of the family to the Christian faith. Some storytellers have added an epilogue to the scene - that upon leaving, he sent a note to the daughter signed "Your Valentine". I bet if I brought that up to my guest he would become flustered and adamantly deny any such action. Or perhaps he is a romantic after all.