The buffet table– a place where the concept of sharing is brought to brazen, and at times terrifying levels. Depending on your guests, the layout of the designated table, and just how many diners you are trying to accommodate, the buffet table can become an obstacle course of spilled food, diners with dirty cuffs dragging them through the delicacies set out before them, and so many germs you want to yell out, “Where is the damn sneeze guard?”
Needless to say, we (my husband and I) are planning a rather large (50 or so people) open house for this coming weekend, buffet included (!), as a sort of wedding reception for ourselves. (My word, that was a lot of parentheses for one sentence.) Although I am a good sharer when given the option of choosing my sharing mate, I am not the greatest at sharing with large groups of people. I cannot help but think of how many times my fellow diners have washed their hands, and how well, who is slightly sick, and whom just has allergies, and then there is the dreaded DOUBLE DIP!
We have a very good family friend, she is a a contemporary of my parents, and I have known her since my childhood. She is a very good cook; not only can she follow a recipe well, but she also knows what is needed to bring the food up to higher, more sumptuous level. However, I do not enjoy dining at her house. Her kitchen is a disaster, dishes piled high on every surface, splotches of week-old sauce decorating the splash guard behind the stove, and old tasting spoons left about, continually used and then reused. And to top it all off, she’s a lick-er. Numerous times I have watched as she licks dressing off of her fingers, then uses those same unwashed fingers to plate a salad, gingerly laying garnish about with those same hands. I don’t care how tantalizing the dressing you are making is, you simply cannot surround your fingers in your own saliva, then expect other to partake of the same liquid!
Back to the buffet, my mother and I are doing most of the cooking, so we can guarantee the clean nature of the food, but can we really control how the food is handled once it leaves the kitchen and goes to the buffet table? I guess I will have to gear up not to think about the food once it has left my hands. I will just enjoy my guests, the beauty of the day, and refrain from shrieking, “Jim, don’t you dare think of dipping that asparagus spear back into the dish of aoli!”
More after the party…
