Christmas dinner

Laurie
Christmas dinner
Le Pain Quotidien, December 26, 2008

Catherine enters the Ryans’ apartment with her sun face and red jockey’s cap, while I am trying to prevent Carlos, the chef, from disappearing under a crust of resentment. Catherine, who will help serve, is my poet friend. Carlos and Robert, the captain, are from my catering world. The Ryans’ annual Christmas party represents some kind of continuity. And ahead is the path with Richard, looking like one of those paintings by Maurice Denis of French roads lined with plane trees that extend into the distance and into the future. I’ve told Carlos his flautas are tasteless and his empanadas greasy. He’s worked for days preparing food I toss. Richard understands the failure, but he feels for Carlos. He thinks Carlos is more important than the meal.

The guests are arriving in 2 ½ hours. Richard gathers the ingredients and equipment to prepare a madeleine batter from scratch. He is not a cook, not a baker, but he can put his shoulder to the wheel. Catherine whips cream to pipe on mini chocolate cakes. I concoct a barbecue sauce for the ribs, which turn out tender and crispy. Carlos knows how to brush and bake them. He knows how to time a meal for serve-out. Robert, a stage actor with a caramel voice, knows how to keep cool no matter what. I know how to make food taste good, but I have no recipes and I’m preparing dishes I have not cooked before. I make a sauce of orange and cloves for the lamb. The day before, Richard and I have stuffed three butterflied legs of lamb with layers of baby spinach, pancetta, olives, and roasted red peppers and we’ve tied them into beautiful roasts. A few times in the week leading up, I have thought I was crazy to be in Fairway two days running before Christmas. On the way back from Chinatown, Richard forgets the lobster tails and shrimp on the bus.

But we get it done. We serve six passed hors d’oeuvres, an appetizer course, a main course with three sides, a dessert course and Richard’s madeleines—golden little shells dusted with powdered sugar and presented in a lotus napkin nest. We’ve been on our feet for ten hours, cadging bites of food and drinks as we dart and plate, when the five of us sit around the kitchen table to share a toast. The Ryans are pleased, and everything is clean and shelved. Richard has said he doesn’t want to spend Christmas this way, and I say never again, but later he says maybe. The camaraderie is the hook, the group flowing together that you get in theater and the kitchen. Pocketing our checks, we embrace, and then Richard, Catherine, and I cab down to Lee’s apartment. I sit with the driver, who is from Ghana, and he translates the words on the CD he is playing, songs of passion and the ache of love. I feel it for my city. Soaring down Park Avenue aglow in lights, we laugh about Bernie Madoff, wondering where in thin air all the billions have gone.