Company's Coming...

As mentioned in my last post, I needed to get my chairs finished for my next challenge.  Well, my challenge was to host a dinner party!  If you may not know, I am not exactly a culinary enthusiast.  In fact, most of what I eat now comes in a can, box, or a bag.  Luckily, I really like KD, and Beefaroni, and frozen pizza.  So to say this was a challenge was somewhat of an understatement (or so I thought). Now, of the four girls that I had over, 3 of them work in event marketing and the other one has her own business.  That being said, I was anticipating finding a date that worked for everyone to be somewhat of tricky endeavor, but fortunately enough, Thursday night at 8pm seemed to work for everyone!

Now comes the menu planning…  One of the girls just finished reading Skinny Bitch by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin and has since decided to try out the life of a vegetarian. (Which by the way, if you’re interested in becoming a veggie but just need an extra push to really convince you, I suggest you reading this book.  Another girl actually became a vegan after reading it!)  So meat on my menu was out (relief for the girl who knows how to cook no meat except chicken).  I’m pretty sure that leaves only pasta and vegetables.  Perfect.  Here’s what the menu consisted of:

Starter: Grape tomato bruschetta

Salad: Arugula with fresh shaved parmesan cheese and a homemade dressing

Main: Pasta shells stuffed with spinach, ricotta, and parmesan cheese

Dessert: Pumpkin pie, and chocolate cake

I think the reason that I am so hesitant to come to enjoy the art of cooking, is that it just seems so stressful!  You only have one oven and one stovetop but somehow, you need to get the timing just right so that everything is served piping hot! Well, upon starting this challenge, I decided to just prep everything I could in the afternoon so that when the company came, I was actually spending time with them and not in the kitchen getting tomato sauce in my hair.  So I was able to cook the bruschetta, slice the bread, make a dressing, and put together the stuffing all before the first knock on my door.  (You may have noticed that I didn’t mention that pie or cake… Those came out of boxes…)

But I have to tell you, I thought this challenge would help me get out of my comfort zone and try to cook something I normally wouldn’t cook, and that would be the end of it.  Turns out, knowing that I could cook a meal and entertain was not the lesson that I took away.  Spending that time with good friends, laughing, sharing stories, telling jokes, and being around good people that you really care about was the biggest thing that I took away from this dinner.  How could I ever have thought that my friends were just my friends?? Your friends are you support system, your advice givers, and your place where you find solace. 

There are many times when we (especially women), get into a new relationship, and focus all of our energies and attentions on that new guy.  I think when this happens, your friends get it; we’ve all been there before.  But I think when it eventually becomes habitual to just see your friends when you and your man have nothing going on, is when you start cheating yourself out of experiencing something wonderful.  A boyfriend can bring you companionship, love, familiarity, support, and comfort, but I’ve come to realize that he just can’t give you what your friends can.  A friend can give you all the things I’ve just mentioned, but so much more.  I can’t describe it, but I know it’s true.  And I wasn't the only one who felt/thought this.  When the dinner party was wrapping up, we call kind of looked and each other, and were like “This is AWESOME”.  We decided to make it a regular occurrence.  Every second Thursday, we’re going to get together and eat, drink, and be merry.

I’ll end this blog post with a toast:

To friends and

rediscovered truths;

To laughter and encouragement.

To love lost and love found.

To inspiration,

support,

and advice