Saturday Night with Peter's "Girls."

Last Saturday, we had one of our favorite groups at our home for dinner. Jo Mary and her sister Phyllis, both in their 80's, Ellie, in her late 70's, and Pat. My husband Peter and I enjoy these women tremendously. Every time we gather, I learn so much, and sometimes it is sad or shocking or both. Ellie told us about what happened when she was a child and the mother in a family with young children died: if the father could not afford a full time housekeeper/Nanny, the young children were taken from him the the State of Connecticut and placed in an orphanage! She told us of one man in her neighborhood whose wife died and he quickly moved out of state so he could keep his children with him. Her own mother died when she was young and her father quickly married a widow with children, so she and her siblings could stay with him. It makes me wonder if that happened to my own mother, whose mother died following the birth of her 13th child. She was about 3 at the time (child #12) and grew up as a ward of the state.

Anyway, I wanted to make a really nice dinner for our wonderful friends. Ellie commented that I make everything look easy, but I told her it's all in the planning. We had a store-bought cheese spread with our wine before dinner (I would usually make my own but my time was a bit limited). Our soup was a homemade Lentil soup with a middle eastern flair, it had some finely chopped fresh ginger, a little curry powder, anf a couple of tablespoons of honey. I'll post the complete recipe in my next installment. Our salad was baby spinach and raddiccio, topped with golden raisins soaked for a day in sherry and some toasted pine nuts.

I wanted to roast a tenderloin and serve it with mashed potatoes, a nice mushroom gravy and roasted asparagus, which are so easy. I'll put the recipes in the next blog for ease of printing.