Through the winter, we had been meeting up for dinners with a group of five friends. It should be six! But person number six, Siobhan, was somewhere on the southern hemisphere. She came back in February. We had already met up a few times, but she hadn't been to my house yet or met my cat. I had been mentally preparing for having five guests over. It is an unusually high number! But I'm sure my house can fit that. So I suggested a date for dinner at my place. Some discussion followed and we settled on 22 April. And I knew I would have to cook quite some food! Tom (Siobhan's partner) is infamous for being able to consume quite a lot. But at least the choice of dishes was wider now than the previous time I cooked for this company, as everyone was eating cheese again.
I decided I was going to make two quiches, and add tomato salad for reasons of colour. Susan had offered to sort dessert. So on the day, I set to work. I decided to blind bake the quiche crusts. That way you know for sure that they are properly done when you serve the quiche! I had never done this before, but it worked.
The day before I had already switched the boiler back on. It is okay for me to live without central heating, but I don't want to do that to guests! And I got everything ready on time. I managed to cobble together enough crockery and cutlery to make it work for six. I don't have a co-ordinated set that big! But with some odd additions I reached the numbers. And I was just having a few minutes of reading the newspaper in the sun before people would appear. And then my phone pinged. It was Siobhan, saying "this is where I'm really hoping we did say we weren't around yes?!" I didn't expect that. She quoted the WhatsApp message where Tom had indeed indicated they were busy. But on the same note, Dean had indicated he would be washing his hair this very night. As there were no objections to the date I had assumed it was as flippant a remark as the one about Dean's hair. But now it turned out it had been serious! Oh dear.
A minute or two later the others appeared, they were also a bit disappointed. But well, you can have a lovely night with four people! And it would just mean we would have a lot of food left over. I probably wouldn't have to cook the entire rest of the week…
We first had a beer and some nibblies in the garden. It was a lovely early evening! But then we went indoors for dinner. We managed to eat exactly half of the quiche offering. And roughly two thirds of dessert.
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| A lot of quiche for four people |
We then retired to the living room where we lit a fire. It was that time of year where both a fire and drinking beer in the sun make sense! And a lovely evening was had. I'll just have to try again to get the complete sextet to my house!
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