In the shadow of freakin’ awesome

I had just finished unloading the dishwasher. The cutlery basket was still in my hand. There were dirty dishes all over the bench and kitchen table – easily another load. I have three teenagers here  (my two and their friend). Sometimes I feel as though the chores are never-ending. I decided to enlist a little help: 

“Rosie could you stack the dishwasher for me please?”.

“No mum, I hate touching dirty dishes”, Rosie groaned. 

When was that ever an excuse not to do the dishes?, I thought to myself. In my day it was hands in with the dirty dishes scrubbing! I pressed my point with Rosie, but she stayed firm.

“I’ll unpack it but I don’t want to load it”, she moaned. 

“It’s not difficult. Here’s the cutlery basket. Put the cutlery in first. I’ll leave it out for you”.  I was hopeful that if I walked out of the room she would be left with no one to moan and groan at and a job staring at her to be done.

But she persisted before I could make a get-away. “No, I don’t want to”. Her sister was on the verandah within ear shot. “Get Kat to do it”, she grumbled.

“But I asked you”. I took the hook and Rosie pressed her point.

“I hate that job”, she whined. 

Suddenly her sister rose from the swinging chair on the verandah looking mighty scary. (Kat has taken to wearing quite thick eye liner and supporting a don’t-mess-with-me expression). She strode into the kitchen with an audible humph. 

“Whenever I hear people arguing over doing something, I think ‘oh my god why are you people so stupid?’ And I realise that I’ll have to do the job myself just to shut them up!”.  She spoke with adult self righteousness whilst collecting the dishes and loading them in.

“Thanks Kat!”, I said with emphasis after a moment of stunned silence. (Its not like she has ever taken this sort of responsibility before). 

“Yeah, well, its just because I’m freakin’ awesome”, she replied with half a grin on her face.

“Hey, but I unstacked it! Does that make me freakin’ awesome too?” I felt determined to be recognized for my awesomeness as well. After all, the dishwasher has been running at least twice a day over these holidays and it doesn’t happen by magic.

But her reply was firm. “No, you’d only be freakin’ awesome if you reloaded it again”.

not really hostess-with-the-mostest

So far the summer is whizzing by in a whir of socializing with house guests and relatives visiting from far and further away. My favorite cousin from Brissy and his family of five left today after three weeks here. We’ve also had the hub’s brother and his family of five here from the UK. We’re on to our fourth set of house guests, with a change-over happening on Friday. At various pinch points we’ve needed to put up tents to cope with the numbers – in total five tents and one camper van!

People have been asking me how I cope with all the visitors and house guests so well, and ask whether I’m getting tired of catering for the hoards. My answer is the same each time. It’s not really much effort at all. For a start, we have been cooking combined barbecues. I’ve been placing orders at the local fresh sea food supplier. There is no effort in placing and picking up an order, putting out freshly shucked oysters and wrapping a fresh barramundi or salmon fillet (big enough to serve 10) in foil with lemon and a bit of butter and whacking it on the barbie for others to supervise while throwing together a couple of salads. There was one time that the two kilos of prawns I ordered needed peeling before marinating and barbecuing, but my friend, Cath (one of our house guests for New Years Eve) did it with me and made it fun. The result was worth it by the way. Prior to barbecuing them, we marinated the prawns in garlic, lemon juice, sambal oelek and half of the bunch of coriander that Cath had brought with her for her fried noodle salad. 

And further, I have not been cleaning the house from top to bottom every time new friends or relatives arrive. I’m on holidays and the house is as they find it (even down to them bringing their own towels and linen). I do occasionally ask the girls to tidy the upstairs bathroom. With four daughters the bench in there is so out of control with products for every thing you could imagine that it almost warrants a photograph. For example, how many pump packs of Impulse, and how many bottles of Listerine could girls of nine, twelve, fourteen and sixteen actually need to have in their shared bathroom? On last count there were three of each. I’m not even beginning to count the number of hair products, moisturizers, body glow and makeup products.

I do check to see that the guests have all they need, and do make sure they feel entirely at home to put the kettle on or take over the kitchen any time they feel the urge. All in all, they muck in and the result is shared labor. Every body’s happy!

Catering for sixty

I have another cooking challenge. Last year I cooked an entree for fifty for the yacht club progressive dinner. This year for the same event, I am down to cook the main course. 

I hadn’t given it much thought. I’ve hosted christmas dinner for twenty and a new years eve barbeque for thirty two. The progressive dinner is my next challenge and its next Saturday. There is something about being under pressure that kicks me into gear. I’ve decided to make beef wellington. The yacht club has a terrific industrial kitchen and very large oven. I’ll be able to prepare the beef wellingtons beforehand and place them in the oven when the time comes. Whilst they are cooking I’ll be able to eat my entree and prepare the accompaniments. 

The problem is I’ve never cooked beef wellington before. I’ll have to finalize a recipe and try it at home. The trial run will also help with the costing. Two friends have told me their beef wellington recipes. They are slightly different. Both require eye fillet steak, puff pastry and a combination of onion and mushroom sauteed in butter. The difference is one uses chicken liver pate spread onto the puff pastry and the other uses blue cheese, crumbled into the cooled sauteed vegetables and spread onto the pastry prior to rolling it around the meat:

1. Mushrooms and Blue Cheese

Saute chopped onions, mushrooms in butter. Add red wine, favorite herbs and reduce. Cool. Crumble through blue cheese during assembly.

2.  Traditional

Saute onions, mushrooms in butter. Cool. Spread chicken liver pate on puff pastry during assembly.

Time pressure dictates that I make up my mind and do a trial run tomorrow night. I’ll need to cost and order the ingredients early in the week. But which recipe should I choose and what should I serve with it?