It's my dinner party, and I'll drink if I want to

Tomorrow
night I’m meeting up with five total strangers. In my apartment. And I’m
cooking them a multiple-course dinner.

This
is a fact that has been slow on me to dawn, even though the date has been set
in my Moleskine for over a month. I remember writing it in: “7.30 p.m. Dinner
at Mine”. Back in those heady days of denial I wasn’t anticipating it to actually happen. Four weeks ago, when I hit
send on my electronic invitations, I was an expectant mother simply enjoying
eating for two and abusing my belly’s size to always nab a seat on the bus;
reality didn’t apply for me. Now I’m in the delivery room being offered an
epidural, asking my birthing coach would
she mind just pulling the car around, because I think I’ll do this another
time, if it’s all the same to everybody else.

My
dinner party baby is already crowning and there’s nothing I can do about it.

It
was a cold and drizzly January afternoon when I saw a Facebook friend-of-a-friend
post about about a sort of scheme that had launched in London, one that involved eating food and meeting new people. And I mean, HI WHAT’S YOUR NAME MY NAME’S LAURA I LIKE YOUR
SHOES WHAT DO YOU DREAM ABOUT? Eating food and meeting new people are My All
Time Favourite Things Ever. 

(This
is not news.)

Example:
Last month, when
I went to see my genius friend Alma walk the stage to signal her departure
from graduate school in Milan, I was buzzing for days afterwards. Not because
she graduated top of her class and I got to say, yeah- she’s my friend,
but because afterwards we had a whopping six-course meal at the fanciest of Milanese
restaurants with the entire graduating class.

I got
to ask this bloke about his life over
the grilled aubergine and courgette, and that
lady about her job as we had the pesto pasta. I got to move my chair round to
discuss what it means when you’ve spent your childhood moving from place to
place with this keynote speaker over
tiramisu and discover the meaning to the word faitheist from that professor
when she poured my coffee.

Last
weekend I got an email from my
super fun friend Marina that said
simply, Dinner at mine, Monday, 8 p.m.
Will be bunch of lesbian vegetarians you’ll love. I put on my plaid shirt
and off I went, not a care in the world, no further explanation necessary, and
three days later I was in the front row of the play one of these acquaintances
had directed, and that’s why making
new friends is the bestest.

Last
Friday I spent the night at the pub with six guys who I can count on one hand
the number of times I’ve met before, and the reason I do the book
club and the
volunteering is because there’s always a new face, a new story. When my
brother’s fella emailed me to e-introduce his friend who, apparently, I just had to meet, I went for drinks
enthusiastically and talktalktalked with
fizzing excitement the whole goddamn time.

Disclaimer:
I don’t like people who don’t understand the concept of
spirit animals, though.

This
supper-club-thing I saw on Facebook was like all of those strangers-to-mates
situations I’ve just listed but with all. the. foods. We know how
I feel about the foods. So I signed up.

It
was this supper club who threw the
Valentine’s Dinner I went to earlier this year, the one where I was late
and ripped my trousers and said “blow job” in the first thirty seconds I was
there. That was a nice introduction to it all.

Then,
in March, I was invited to my first private dinner where, of course, I was late
again because I got lost, and met five lovely people to whom I said “vagina” in
the first thirty seconds of meeting them. That was also nice.

Now
it’s my turn to host a dinner, as per the rules of the game, and so I carefully
selected my guests- including my previous host- and sent a message that said: I have no idea what I’ll cook, but they’ll
be lots of red wine and plenty of candles, so at least we’ll look pretty and seem
funny.

But
that was aaaaaaages ago, and now the
time is here, and I’ve got to menu plan, and cater for a gluten-free one, and
clean the house. I've definitely got to buy more loo roll, and get some fresh flowers in. I can't forget to leave enough time to caramalise the onions, and soak the lasagna sheets, and shit- is it three egg
whites or four that go in the chocolate avocado mousse? What digestif should I get? Should I serve salad as a separate course? I DON'T THINK I'VE GOT SIX MATCHING PLATES. 

New
plan: tomorrow night I’m having five strangers over to my apartment TO GET
WASTED.

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