When dinner is also a party!

I’m a really good dinner party guest. I am always so appreciative, impressed that anyone has even managed to turn on the oven and cook for me. – Lucy Punch

Little by little – and sometimes going backwards instead of forwards – Rebekah and I have been bringing our new home into not just livable but sharable shape. We have hosted friends for lunch, family for visits and even had the occasional guest/s over for dinner.

Then, Sunday evening, we finally hosted our first – according to my definition – official dinner party. My definition, by the way, involves more than one set of friends, so having both the Brittains and the Andersons at the same time meets my standard and we can finally say that Maul-Hall is now open for the business of hospitality!

We are especially pleased to have room to open the long dining table. In Wake Forest we had this small, square room that only allowed for a round table or maybe just the one leaf.

Here we have four leafs in and we could seat ten. “Of course I don’t want to have to cook for ten,” I told David. “But you did,” he pointed out and, yes, he was right!

We served an exceptionally tender pork loin with yellow rice, black beans, artichoke and croissants.

The food was great, along with hors d’oeuvres and then some exceptional ice-cream for dessert. But the evening was all about the company.

Fantasy Guest List:

Sometimes it’s fun to imagine “fantasy guests” – folk like Abe Lincoln or Princess Diana or C.S. Lewis or David Livingstone; you know, people with stories. But “my fantasy guests” are the people we love and dinner parties with these good folk are my favorite thing.

Rebekah and I are still a little blown away by the level of hospitality here in Tarboro. I won’t publish a list of names, but there are at least eight to ten couples who we feel seriously close to. Then, in a world where many men simply do not have close friends, I could name probably forty guys off the top of my head who I could count on and who have my back in a heartbeat.