Turns out I probably didn’t need to go above and beyond on the food for tonight’s dinner, as CC’s man and The Dude took to each other like fish to water. Indeed, it appears to be a bromance on both sides. (Both from observation and from reports after the fact from both bro corners.) But whatever: the food was so good that none of us had room for dessert. (Note: this is why I am so lazy about making dessert! and why I make my guests bring that as opposed to some other item! My food is so good nobody has room for dessert! )
So two weeks from today, it looks like The Dude will be meeting my mom and G. He will be doing so at a dinner I cook, mainly because I know that there is no way for him to win at a dinner out with G. (G. will offer to pay, and he will expect for The Dude to offer to pay, and then if The Dude does G. will fight with him, and if The Dude won the fight G. would be pissed, but if The Dude didn’t win he also would be pissed, so yes, I want to avoid all of that, so I will cook.) It’s worth noting that my mother has questioned the way that we are “calculating” the meeting of people. I then reminded her that she’s only ever met two people I’ve dated, with a ten year spread between them. It’s worth noting that The Dude will be a decade after the last one. As I said to her: “don’t act like an asshole because you can’t expect another one until I’m nearly 50 if you do.”
But so, The Dude, and The Relationship. The Dude is grand, and The Relationship with him is really, in spite of myself, exactly what I need and want. Will it last? We shall see. But so far so good.
When I read the title, I thought this was gonna be a goddamn food recipe blogge with pictures and shitte!! This is bullshittio!! SNIT!
Yeah, I put up my beef burgundy recipe several years ago–lemme see yours!
I think that having a family meeting for the first time on your own turf will be more comfortable for you, and it may coerce better behavior from others.
Your description of what would have happened had you had a first meeting of the Dude and G in a restaurant is one of the funniest things I’ve ever read… I think you’re smart to do it at your house. The more you can control it, the better…
Ya know why I never post recipes? It’s because I don’t actually follow them very well. I started with this recipe from epicurious: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Boeuf-Bourguignon-104754
But I added more tomato paste than was required, and I added about 5x as many carrots than they called for, and I used celery seed rather than a stalk of celery because I’d forgotten to buy it at the store, and more garlic than they called for, and I seasoned at each step…. Point is, I can’t do step-by-step recipes because I am too improvisational. That said, doing the pearl onions the way they say is AWESOME (and I used to think I hated pearl onions).
As for the anticipated reaction from G., he’s not an asshole. He just a) thinks that nobody is good enough for me and b) is Very Lebanese, i.e., the whole fighting over a bill thing is cultural, but the problem is that unless you’re going out with a Lebanese Man, The Dude you’re going out with doesn’t necessarily understand the cultural protocol about how properly to fight over a bill. So my intention is not to stop a potentially bad situation so much as it is to facilitate a mutually positive experience for all involved, if that makes sense. In other words, me cooking takes the weird bill business out of the equation, and that is a much more reasonable solution than trying to coach The Dude about G’s expectations for fighting, acquiescing, and yet still paying. (It’s worth noting that when G and my mom got together, one of the reasons he decided that I would become his “little child” and that he would stay with her is because I apparently instinctively know how to reject generosity while at the same time to gracefully accept it, even though I was only 12).
You think my recipes aren’t fucken improvisational?? Take the motherfucken pictures while you cook, and then afterwards you figure out the recipe. Sheesh!
Well, sure, I could do it that way, but that would mean that I would have to think ahead about taking pics as I go. I never think of that until I’m about halfway (or all the way) done.