WORK WORK WORK PARTY
Every July, the weekend after the 4th, we give a garden party. This forces us to do a lot of garden work so it all looks nice. I think it looks great about a week before Woody, the perfectionist, thinks it is okay. We have generally got the vegetable gardens well in hand by then and are madly harvesting the early stuff. But the ornamentals have been neglected in favor of the vegetables – except maybe for the roses and what I have planted that I keep an eye on.This year the rhododendrons were all finished long before the party because of the heat. Most of them bloomed in May instead of June, a new phenomenon. The roses hit their peak before the party, although a number were still blooming. But our many daylilies came into bloom at least two weeks early.I love daylilies. Nothing eats them except us if we want to. I often put daylily flowers into salads as they’re pretty and taste a little sweet. They are sturdy, they spread. You start out with one plant and if they are happy, in three years, you have several plants you can divide and move. They are accommodating, never fussy. They live for years. You can find species daylilies in the woods by old house sites, as you can lilacs. There’s a spot up on a hill over the Herring River where there is at last a quarter acre of orange daylilies that have survived over a hundred years and are still spreading. I grow pale yellow, gold, orange, red, maroon, purple, pink and peach.Woody likes to count things. For years, he only viewed the party as successful if at least 85 people came. Since I did the cooking, often with the help of my friend Elise, I knocked myself out. There were always guests I did not know, never learned the names of and never saw again.Two years ago he agreed finally to cut the list to actual friends, people we socialize with otherwise. So now we had 45 people and I also encourage people to bring a dish now, so it’s much easier. It’s so hot I mostly made salads, aside from gravlax that we prepare every six weeks or so. We had shrimp, turkey salad [an great hit. I have improvised a wonderful curry recipe], zuke salad, cuke salad, tabouli, guacamole, and a chickpea feta salad that vanished very quickly. I also made a rhubarb-strawberry pie. I make wonderful pies, but don’t like cake as well. I only make maybe four cakes that I enjoy. We put out nosh foods like chips and cheese and crackers. People especially volunteer to make desserts.Elise came Thursday and stayed until Monday. She was to see her doctor tomorrow and make sure her last bout of chemo worked on her pancreatic cancer. I am waiting to hear what he says. We’ve been friends since 1977, when we met in the Feminist Writers Guild.So once the food was out, I let it all develop as it will. I have done my work and now I relax completely. Unlike Woody, I never worry once the party has started. I figure we have brought together good people in a beautiful setting with lots to eat and drink and various tables, two screened places, and if anyone can’t enjoy themselves, suck it up. I sat under the wisteria arbor with a rotating bunch of friends eating and drinking until it was dark and a core few friends helped us bring the food in and then sit on the sunporch until late.We always have a lot of leftover wine, many unopened bottles, and various plates people brought with their food and forgot. Some they pick up; a friend will get two of them today. But some we inherit.Done for another year. Back to my computer.