Last night, we had 16 of Derek’s students over for dinner. They’re his mentor group, so we started with them, but eventually, we’ll try to get all 70 students over (in shifts). We had to get creative with seating (Derek and I settled for the stadium seats), and as you see, we had to eat outside. (You can do that in mid-October out here!)
Over the years, we’ve gotten braver about hosting bigger and bigger groups of people. A couple years ago, I posted some thoughts on hospitality, and I think they’re still really applicable. Specifically, we’ve realized that you don’t have to have a spacious dining room and enough fine china to have a group over. In general, I like to use our everyday china because it’s more homey, but that only works for groups of 11 or fewer. Paper plates worked last night, and they cut down on clean-up. I think back to our college adviser, who had 50-70 students over at least every semester. I wanted to find a picture of the night before a spring break trip, when about 40 of us slept over at the Stewart’s house, but all I could find was this Halloween picture from 2000. Good times!
I remember how much fun it was to be in a home (with the Stewart kids running around, sword fighting with anyone who was willing). And last night, several of Derek’s students told us that, too. We fed them from-scratch lasagna (no pre-made noodles or jarred sauce for us), breadsticks, salad, bruschetta, pita chips and dips, pizzelles, and a pound cake that one of his students brought. I was a leetle stressed about all the last-minute prep (and cleaning–there was no point in cleaning the bathroom ahead of time with a potty training girl in the house), but they appreciated homemade food, so the prep and clean-up was worth it.
We also learned a couple things about hosting in California. People are so much more health-conscious here that we’ll have to tweak our menu next time. I’d been thinking it would be 16 people total, but when I realized that didn’t include our family, I made Derek make an extra lasagna–cue You’re-turning-into-your-mother-in-law jokes now–but it turned out that 2 or 3 of the girls were vegetarians and hadn’t told Derek. So they just ate salad. And the only two girls who ate a decent amount of food were the midwesterners. Note for next time: make less food than normal people would eat. Also, while the bruschetta was popular, the homemade whole wheat breadsticks didn’t go. Note: have less carbs next time.
The kids aren’t complaining about the yummy leftovers today, though!
The special diets caught me by surprise too when I started grad school. I went to a potluck and only realized after lunch that more than half of the other grad students were vegetarian. Luckily I had been in charge of dessert.
I guess the eating habits in California would be quite different from out here. Still, very nice of you to host such a dinner for these students. I read your past thoughts on hospitality and found your points to be very convicting. Hospitality is something I need to work on.
Sorry, that anonymous post is me.
I am so glad that Lizzie likes that old top of yours (that you wore as a dress when you were smaller than she is now.) Sounds like great food to my over-eating midwestern taste buds!
Sounds like a fantastic dinner party!! I enjoyed seeing the picture from college days and I thought your observation about the way ppl ate interesting. I read somewhere that climate has a lot to do with the way people eat. A person from cold country tends to eat heartier, cooked food and even fattier food because they actually need it to survive the winters. Whereas people from warmer climates tend to eat more raw produce and smaller amounts of food because of its ready availability and the lesser need for extra energy (which is really what food is on one level). I’ve wondered how our diet will change once we move…
I’m just curious about Tommy’s German “spiders” on the patio. HAHAHHAHAHHA