a posh affair

I got up and set about getting the tables set. Making decisions about how to arrange it. I need some larger round tables for the room. But I make do with card tables. I am inordinately proud of my pretty table setting with the good china and Riedel glasses, place cards, little menus.

When the cook arrives, I help her stir, chop and get things cleaned up behind the prep. It's fun. All the pressure is on her. Finally, more help arrives in the form of three friends who will be waiters. The guests come. Hors d'oeuvres are passed, welcome wine distributed, people introduced. Somewhere in there I changed into my tux. Almost forgot to do that! Our singer and accompanist arrive and warm up and then sing for real. 'La Vie en Rose' and 'La Marseille' and other French stuff. We get everyone sitting and are served a tomato, mozzarella, basil salad. It's delicious. We have a very tasty Burgundy with it.

Then the filet with mushroom and brandy sauce is served with a portobello stuffed with potatoes and baby spinach. It's sensational. We serve an outstanding Bordeaux. We have three bottles but there are soon exhausted so FFP pulls stuff out of the cellar like some 1994 Cabs that rock even more.

The way this benefit works, you don't serve dessert. Instead you send the guests off to a big party where all the dinner parties converge for dessert and coffee and champagne. SuRu drives Gayle, FFP and I there. We visit with people from our party and others. There was one other black tie one, a Martinis and Manhattans party. Perhaps the woman I saw outside as we retrieved our car was at that one. She managed to fall down with a lighted cigarette in one hand and a glass of champage in the other and didn't break, spill or extinguish. She couldn't get up, though. She wasn't driving, I'm happy to say.

Home, we were exhausted from the preparation and event and fell into bed. However, a lot of the cleanup was done by the waiters. We paid them, but Gayle volunteered her many hours to prep and cook.