Andy wrote:
..

> > That is another good reason to keep guests out of the kitchen.
>
> Then there's the miracle of science of getting everything to the table
> piping hot. Mom could do it, even with drunk (female mostly) relatives
> milling around the kitchen knowing that their mere presence would assuredly
> speed things along.

My mother was good at it. She would usually have 16 people or more for
Christmas dinner. A few of us would slip in to give her a hand. I always
seemed to end up making gravy and mashing potatoes and turnip (yech to the
turnip). She used to have the table set and condiments and olive trays
out ahead of time. Salad was made and then kept in a damp cloth in the
fridge. Cookie trays were filled, carrot pudding steaming and caramel sauce
all made. The potatoes went on about 40 minutes ahead of dinner time,
turnip shortly after. The turkey came out to rest about 1/2 hour ahead.
Then the gravy was started. It could be kept warm until ready. While I was
mashing potatoes and turnip other vegetables were being started.

She had all the serving dishes ready. The turkey went out to the table and
then each of us was responsible for transferring things from pots to
serving dishes and taking them out to the table. Everything arrived at the
table within 2-3 minutes. And she made it look easy.


My wife, OTOH, cannot pull that off, nor can anyone in her family. The poor
girl cannot multi task. She is banned from the kitchen when I do dinners.
It saves a lot of arguing in front of company. I was once doing a roast
and had it timed to be ready at a certain time and I thought it was
understood that I was looking after everything. I went in to check the
roast and start the potatoes. When I got to the stove I was surprised to
see that she had put the beans on and they were almost ready. Beans take
about 5 minutes and a big pot of potatoes is more like 30. That is when she
was banned.

> There's a REASON for a living room table full of hor'dourves and a table
> full of booze!

Well hell, hors d'ourves and booze can exist all on their own anyway ;-)