For someone who is so ferociously anti-cooking, I do own an inexplicable number of cookbooks. Similarly, I am known for putting out a spread that takes friends and visitors aback. This is rooted on a very simple principle: I do not throw parties, and do not entertain as such, but if you are one of those people who gets my breezy and non-committal hey, would you like to swing by between Christmas and New Year for a tea and a mince pie, then you’ll be surprised by what that tea and a mince pie look like once you set foot in my kitchen.
Today was such a day. Pete had texted me early in the morning yesterday, wondering whether we would catch up during the holidays. That was his code word for I’d like to swing by to enjoy your spread of delicacies.
Now, in truth, I don’t qualify what I put out as delicacies. First of all, I am a vegetarian and if I were to serve you what I normally eat, then you’d be better off swinging by a Pret on the way here. But I am profoundly not wedded to my own diet when I invite someone over and whilst you won’t catch me barbecuing a hog, I will make ham and mustard finger sandwiches [with more mustard than ham, admittedly], smoked salmon ones, mini cocktail sausages, sausage rolls, Scotch eggs; I will then sprinkle three different types of crisps across the table, I will joyously pour the Prosecco [or whichever bottle of plonk I chance upon in my fridge, as I don’t drink and my knowledge remains ever limited], and I will then proclaim to tuck in to your heart’s content, but remember there are also mince pies, pandoro, chocolate yule log, panettone, stollen and Christmas pudding where all of that came from.
Such was the scene this afternoon when my friend Pete arrived at 2 o’clock sharp, and I whipped out an iced flute into which the wine flowed. As he accommodated himself, I was wielding my sword, thinly buttering white bread upon which the ace up my sleeve [the egg mayo M&S sandwich filler] was then splodged and gleefully spread.
A couple of pointers for you, if like me you are pretty much allergic to the effort involved in having people eat around your table:
[1] Eschew the dinner party at all costs;
[2] Only invite one person at a time, so that you get to enjoy quality time on a one-to-one basis as you gorge yourselves;
[3] M&S is your friend: from sandwich fillers to ready-made sandwiches, from dinky sausages to rolls and quiches and pizzas, pickles on sticks and ham wrapped around mini grissini, you absolutely cannot go wrong with their stuff.
Making sandwiches by using ready-made fillers is the hill upon which I am prepared to die. It gives me the opportunity to use different breads, thus making the spread look richer from the word go with absolute minimal effort [egg on white, brown, or seeded onion Pete?], AND because a filler can be stratospherically elevated by the tiniest, smallest slight of hand [add parsley to creamed salmon, cress to egg mayo, dill to cream cheese]. Use a perfectly sharp knife, crusts off, and you get four finger sandwiches out of two slices of your average medium-sized loaf. Use medium-sized because the ratio of filler to bread does matter quite a bit: you do not want four centimeters of bread to one of filler, but rather two-to-one. It is therefore very important that you are generous with your fillers and that you let your eye guide you.
If even the above is perceived as too much hassle, and I absolutely won’t hold it against you if it is because, hey, I’m the sort of person who is often blindly enraged by a single abandoned teaspoon in the sink, then go one step further on the smart scale and buy M&S ready made sarnies. Yes, you’ve heard, the proper sarnies that you find in the Food to Go section of the fridges. Bonus: a vast choice, depending on the size of the M&S you’re shopping at and the opportunity to pile your serving platters with seducing little triangles of perfection [you cut each existing triangle into two]. Cheese and onion, BLT, egg and cress, prawn mayo, tuna mayo, cheese ploughman, chicken and salad, and much more beside. This of course assumes that you did not think about ordering a sandwich platter from Marks beforehand but whilst I know this will sound horrifically counter-intuitive, I have to tell you that if you want less hassle, not more, than ordering in advance isn’t the way to go.
You can be free to have that friend round to yours in minutes only when a rush to Marks is possible. Ordering involves planning and planning is anathema to the breezy, aforementioned wanna come over later.
Whilst you are there, those little boxes of dinky foodstuffs are your angels and saviours. I’ve never known anyone [non veg obviously] to turn down a perfectly golden mini sausage roll hot from the oven or a mini bowls of those tiny sausages that are also a super hit with the dogs. Tomato and mozzarella parcels? Feta and herb pastries? Cheddar and onion rolls? Tomato arancini? I could go on. Get the lot or get a few. Get four or get a mountain. There’s little more pleasing in my book than to feed a friend and then have two days worth of leftovers. And if I were you, I wouldn’t knock a leftover finger sarnie until you’ve tried it. On Monday, I’m gonna do it all again with Stacia.