My Dear Madeira Spinach

Instructions

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   salt and fresh ground pepper to taste Steam spinach until soft. Drain thoroughly, pat with paper towels until dry. Process in blender for 1 minute, or chop fine. Drain liquid again. Add butter, nutmeg, salt, pepper and cream. Set aside, but keep warm. Saute mushrooms lightly. Add to spinach mixture. Stir in Madeira. Reheat and serve.

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   Fare Weather Friends More than occasionally we have friends over to the Inn for dinner. This may seem like bringing coals to Newcastle but our entertaining is easily divided into those who pay us, and those who repast for free. After all, who can resist a free meal (unless, of course, it happens to be followed by a time-share pitch or the latest scheme in multilevel marketing). All we ask is that they bring cheerful conversation, a good appetite and that they leave behind empty plates (and the good silver). Dinner guests are strange anomalies of the human spirit. You would expect them to be charming, appreciative and at least on time. Usually they are the first two, particularly if you are not trying to impress with a culinary coup de grace: the latest all- vinegar meal, or a mono-maniacal masterpiece from Southern California. People are so polite. They won’t say to your face that a tarte de seaweed is hardly their idea of an appetizer, let alone appetizing,or that for the fourth time, the smell of red wine vinegar precedes you into the dining room. No, they simply won’t eat. Guests do expect your menus to be sensible. We know that if you are particularly proud of your navigation skills around the kitchen, this may seem like an imposition. We’ve all been there. Lemon with everything, (it smells so fresh!), cream with everything, (it adds a je ne sais quoi), garlic with everything, (at least everyone is on equal footing thereafter), and the fabulous dessert that is trotted out meal after meal because everyone thought it was great the first time. Guests should be met at least halfway. You will not impress with your ability to turn zucchini into a five-course banquet, or that you know how to recycle the shrimp from the appetizer into a soup, main course, dessert and sherbet. Nor will it help if you present them with a theme dinner, (say, an all blue brunch: grape juice, blueberry cassis, blueberry pancakes, blue ice cream and a blueberry flan). When you think about your menu, ask yourself these questions: What is in season? Then don’t serve it. Fresh corn is one vegetable I can thick of that everyone has had their fill of long before they make it to your table, even if you have invented a

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   new souffle a la cob. How much time do I have? Then double it or be prepared to surreptitiously offer the local gourmet store’s version of foie gras as your own. What is the purpose of the dinner—the meal itself, background to a meeting of volunteers for a community project, romance? Is anyone allergic to anything? Be secure in the fact that the guest will probably announce their problem well in advance. That way, you can be sure that it is indeed an allergy and not an aversion to your style of cooking. Plan a three course meal that is easy to serve with minimal last minute attention—unless you want to spend the time in the kitchen rather than visiting. (You did invite these people, remember.) My experience is that down-home country cooking—soup or salad, meat with vegetables, and dessert—will satisfy and win over even the most critical guest. In fact, the more pretentious your meal, the more people feel they must comment on it, (often negatively behind your back). Unless you are a chef of fame and notoriety, gracefully accept the fact that the meal in all likelihood will merely be the backdrop to a sensational evening of mirth and conversation. Unless you serve everything flambed, people will rarely stop talking to stand and salute your culinary masterpiece. (They may be standing, nervously, to fetch a fire extinguisher.) Strike a balance in your meals and don’t expect your guests to eat as if they’ve plowed “the back forty" before sitting down. You can lighten the load by offering a clear soup or a small salad as an appetizer, avoiding fatty or deep-fried foods and if the main course does have heft, offer sherbet instead of tiramisu for dessert. Otherwise, your guests will have to ask for small portions, (insulting to them—like you’re implying they should be on a diet), leave some of the meal hidden under the lettuce or piled in a small lump in the corner, (insulting to you), feed the dog, (....), or deposit their London Broil in their neighbor’s purse, (insulting, and surprising, to the neighbor). If you’re going over the top on dessert, announce your intention at the beginning of the meal so guests can adjust their intake (and belts) accordingly. Don’t be to light in your servings, though, because small portions will invariably demand requests for second helpings (thereby denying the benefits of “light” cooking). No one wants to be first for seconds. And they cause you as the host to continually jump up and down out of your chair as if you had a hot seat. Small servings are usually gazed upon with silence, while the guest asks herself: is this it? Or wonders whether

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   such a cuisine meuniere/misere creation should be disturbed. Serving family-style is best, (all food in bowls on the table, everyone helps themself). This allows each guest to eye the vittles, estimate the quantity available, divide by the number of eaters, and take their portion accordingly. It saves face. And, let’s face it, you haven’t had your food doled out to you since you left the highchair. The best conversation comes, in my experience, when there is plenty of food on the table, being passed around and shared by all.

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   When The Spirit Moves I bought the chest at an auction, much to Michael’s surprise. When we attend an auction, we normally tour the goods first and decide what we want to bid on, set a price and (try to) stick to it. So call it a whim or an insubordination, or whatever. Michael just shrugged as I started to bid. (Yeah, like he’s never come home with something we didn’t agree on. I have photos. One time he brought back and entire phonebooth! He swears it was a car phone...but that’s another story.) The chest was an eighteenth century European dowry chest. Probably French by construction, with Spanish lock and oil portraits on guache, and leather hinges. OK, so its provenance is questionable. But I’m convinced it was a steal. And if it’s a fake I don’t want to know. I’ve been close to taking it to be appraised several times. I want to find out that it’s worth thousands, just to rub it in. But I don’t dare. I call it “Lovejoy”, (named for the British television art seuth.) Michael calls it the “hope-less chest”. It’s been living precariously in the second floor hallway opposite the stairs, beneath an antique quilt. I say precariously because it seems to be trying to move downstairs. I several times had to shift it back against the wall when I found it stuck out a foot or so from the wall. At the time I thought nothing of it, assuming someone had bumped it, or it had been moved in the cleaning. Until it kept happening and one day I found it clear across the hall at the top of the stairs. "I know you don’t like Lovejoy, but you don’t have to push it down the stairs," I joked to Michael. "What?"" He looked askance and dubious when I explained. The next time it moved, it was one quarter over the edge of the stair. "That’s it," I told Michael. "It’s going into one of the guest rooms." I rearranged furniture. At dinner, Michael said, "I think I heard your ghost thumping around upstairs this afternoon." "You could have helped," I pointed out archly. A week later I was showing guests to their room. The door wouldn’t open at first.

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   A strong push and Lovejoy slowly inched along the carpet against the back of the door where it had wandered toward the exit. As the guests viewed the room, I excused myself and yelled with slight hysteria for Michael. "This has to go downstairs," I explained to them as Michael came upstairs. Lovejoy is now living in the downstairs hall and hasn’t moved a corpuscle in months.

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   One Man’s Feast Several years ago when I was living in England, a friend very kindly took me on a countryside tour out of London along the Thames of Wolsey, Moore and Beckett, on a search for olde worlde pubs. There are still some original centuries-old buildings with five foot doorways, white-washed wattle and daub walls with foot-thick solid oak beams (not veneers), and dark smokey interiors. They are pubs of good cheer, crackling fireplaces, warm beer, and deep ales. Ah, what a time we had. On that lovely Summer day, we careened merrily along narrow country roads in his beat up Citroen. Curious that. The English hate the French, except for their cars, bread and cheeses. As I found out later, the French also hate the English, except for their woollens. The Channel is much wider than the mere 100 miles across. It’s a wonder they ever got the “Chunnel” to meet in the middle. We sang encores of pub songs as I tried to catch glimpses of the countryside over thick hedgerows and stone walls. All of a sudden, I lurched forward against the dash as the car came to a screeching halt amid a hail of gravel and dust. Dave backed up a hundred feet and pulled into a farmyard. “Look,” he said. “Bunnies Five Pounds. I’ll cook you a delicious rabbit stew for dinner.” And out he leaped and jogged up the farmhouse steps before I could speak. I sat there converting Pounds into real money (dollars), wondering how much meat there was on a rabbit anyway and what that worked out to per pound per Pound. David was involved in an animated and jovial conversation with a woman on the porch. I saw them smiling as he reached into his pocket for cash. Suddenly the woman made a loud exclamation of disgust, turned back into the house and slammed the door in his face. Dave looked both bemused and peeved. “What on Earth happened?” I asked as he climbed back into the car. “No. Worse,” he laughed. “Apparently she thought I wanted the damn rabbit for a pet. She was prepared to sell me one. When I asked her if she knew the best way to skin it, she realized I wanted to eat it and she slammed the door in my face.” He shrugged as we backed slowly out the driveway.

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   It would seem that the lesson is: if the sign says, “Rabbits For Sale” you can eat it, but if it says, “Bunnies For Sale”, you can’t. Caveat vendor.