POSITIVELY THIRD STREET (THE DINNER PARTY)

I suppose we all have our favourite number for a party, rather depending on how many we can comfortably seat.  I have never yet managed to own a dining-room big enough and square enough for a round table, but I will someday.  Indonesians love round tables with a Lazy-Susan turntable in the middle – you see them in some upmarket Chinese restaurants – because, like the Chinese, we have many dishes on the table together and people need to be able to help themselves frequently.  Tables like this generally seat ten or twelve, and you can talk to the person opposite you almost as easily as your neighbor, which is very civilised. 

Much as I love food, I cannot imagine a dinner without conversation.  In my first year at university, I started to read English Literature and felt immediately at home in the novels of Jane Austen, not because I had much experience of the life of a country landowner, but because in her characters’ conversation I recognised the tones of polite Javanese society:  measured, conventional, but edged with and sharpened by the enjoyment of language.

I have heard or read somewhere that the best dinner parties are inspired by malice, and though I have never maliciously invited known enemies to sit down together, I do like to see a bit of competition and some differences of opinion.  Ten or twelve people around a table that has no obvious “head” are ideal for this.  I possess a square Victorian schoolroom table (it must have come from a schoolroom because it is stained with ink, and I daresay with childrens’ tears, which leave no mark), and this seats two on a side, so for the time being I find eight a very convivial number.

NOTE: 

I always love reading what Sri Owen has to say and this passage from her hard-to-find book Exotic Feasts, Sri Owen’s Book of Seasonal Menus (London, Kyle Cathie Limited, 1991), is one of my favorites.  I remember finding it during an unplanned stop at an unexpectedly fine bookshop on Third Street in Los Angeles on a hot day a long time ago following a pleasant, but somewhat unsettling, lunch with a man who told me the legendary story about a senior executive at my company throwing an office chair at him with such force that the chair became embedded in the meeting room wall.

The chair-victim had by that time moved on to another company and said he was fine, it was just an incident in his past, and he had let bygones be bygones.  Still he reminded me of a famous economics professor at my undergraduate college who had been the second accused and imprisoned American spy (the other one was U2 pilot Francis Gary Powers) released by the Russians in Berlin in exchange for Rudolph Abel on Glienicke Bridge, the "Bridge of Spies."  It was always said about this man, who was also quite pleasant, that he was unaffected by his rough captivity.  Still, he often looked to be on the verge of flinching under harsh threats and interrogation lights.

I am of several minds about dinner parties.  Sometimes I enjoy them and I really do like inviting people to our home and entertaining them at our own soirées (even though it can be nerve-wracking and expensive).   Other times, dinner parties are profoundly uncomfortable, weirdball experiences and I don’t blame Caroline (much) for some past painful, “let’s go” kicks under the table. 

My mother was a fine dinner party hostess and I am grateful that I own volumes containing her carefully typed menus, recipes, guest lists and timings. 

 

Still, it’s an odd world these days.  Manners have slipped something fierce.  Nobody invites you back and thank you notes are rare.  I remember saying something the other day about "feral."

 

Illustrations:

I.  Franz Ritter von Stuck, The Dinner Party, 1913.

II. Symposium (dinner party) scene from a painted frieze from a small mausoleum (colombarium) near Porta Maggione, ca. 25-1 BC. The scenes in the painting depict the Aeneas and Romulus legends, suggesting that the mausoleum was intended to celebrate Roman identity and connect that identity with the family interred within.

III. Leonardo da Vinci, The Last Supper, 1495-98.

IV.  William Betts, The Dinner Party, 2011.

V.  John Singer Sargent, A Dinner Party, 1884.

The Byrds: All The Things (Link)

Exotic Feasts

Faith Te, Okra (Daily Painting No. 360), 2010

These three recipes come from Sri Owen’s Exotic Feasts, a really superb cookbook.  Ms. Owen is also the author of the magisterial Indonesian Food and Cookery and The Rice Book.

Playing post-lunch hooky on a blindingly hot workday about 20 years ago, I remember finding this book on the shelf of a small, but excellent bookstore on Third Street in Los Angeles. Both the bookstore and the book were real “finds”and I spent the rest of the day sneaking gazes at the recipes (even while attending meetings) and planning a return visit.

Most people I know passionately maintain that they can’t stand okra, their main complaint being the vegetable’s gluey, somewhat sticky texture.  For me, it was love at second sight and I’m sure I first truly enjoyed it in an Indian preparation and moved on quickly from there to other cuisines, such as Cajun, African and Caribbean.  Pickled okra was my daughter Jane’s first (and for a long time only) green vegetable; deep-fried okra was her second.

Growing okra is easy and great fun.  It’s a beautiful plant, strongly sculptural and delicately feathered with a dark, luminous green hue reminiscent of artichokes.  It also has a lovely flower.

In addition to the braised okra, I’ve included a basic rice recipe, which supplements several previous rice posts, and a Pineapple Parfait, which is part of this Sri Owen Exotic Feast.  Rice has always been my favorite food.  However, I am forsaking it for several months in favor of a diet consisting of "a bowl of steam," as the old Woody Allen joke goes.

Jimmie Trotter, Okra Flower Painting, 2009

 Spiced Braised Okra 

Okra or ladies’ fingers have a rather oily texture, which has prevented them from becoming really popular in the West; but when people have eaten them once or twice they usually like them.  They are not difficult to get, at least in large towns, because they are so important to Indian cooking.  Choose young ones, which are smaller in size.  To prepare them simply trim off a little bit of the bottom part, which is rather hard.

3 tablespoons vegetable oil
4 shallots, finely sliced
3 cloves garlic, finely sliced
3 large green chillies, seeded and sliced into thin rounds
1 teaspoon ground coriander
½ teaspoon ground cumin
3 ripe tomatoes, skinned and seeded, then roughly chopped
750 g (1 ½ lb) young okra, washed, then trimmed and patted dry
½ teaspoon sugar
½ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons chopped coriander leaves or flat-leaf parsley

Heat the oil in a wok or frying pan, and fry the shallots, garlic and green chillies, stirring them continuously, for 2 minutes.  Add the ground coriander and cumin, stir again and add the chopped tomatoes and okra.  Stir, then cover the wok or pan and simmer for 4 minutes.  Remove the cover, and then add the sugar and salt. Stir the okra again for one minute.  Adjust the seasoning, and add the coriander leaves or parsley.  Stir for 30 seconds.

      If the okra are not to be served straight away, leave them to cool in the wok pan.  When cold, cover it and keep in a cool place.  Reheat in the wok or pan, stirring them often, for 2-3 minutes, or until hot.

Faith Te, Bowl of Rice with Soy Sauce 2011

Plain Cooked Rice

Maybe the quantity of rice specified here is a little too much; it is quite difficult for me, as an oriental born in a rice eating society, to judge how much rice a European will eat at a dinner party.  But with spicy curry anyone will need a quite generous helping of rice.

875 g (1 ½ lb) Thai fragrant, Basmati or Patna rice.
900 ml (1 ½ pints) cold water

Wash the rice in a bowl with two changes of water, and drain well.  Then transfer the rice into a thick-bottomed saucepan.  Add the water and bring to the boil.  Simmer the rice, uncovered, for about 10 minutes, until all the water has been absorbed.  Stir the rice once, then put on the cover very tightly.  Lower the heat and leave the rice to finish cooking for another 10 minutes.  

The rice is now ready to serve.

Alternatively, after the first 10 minutes, the rice can be transferred into a steamer and then steamed for 10 minutes.  Or you can transfer the rice into a bowl, cover it loosely with clingfilm or with a plate, and microwave it on full power for 5 minutes.

Justin Clayton, Pineapple Wedges, 2006

Pineapple Parfait

Serve the parfait like ice cream, accompanied by almond biscuits if you wish.


1 medium-size ripe pineapple
600 ml (1 pint) double cream
4 egg whites
a pinch of salt
200 g (7 oz) caster sugar

With a sharp knife cut away the plume and base of the pineapple.  Then remove the skin in strips, quite thickly so that the eyes are removed at the same time.  Wash the whole pineapple under running cold water.  Then cut it in half lengthways, and carefully remove the core.  Cut each half into 8-10 thin long wedges, then chop these into tiny piees.  Keep the chopped pineapple with the juice in a large glass bowl.

      With a hand-held electric beater, whisk the cream until thick but not too stiff, and keep it aside. Put the egg white in another bowl, add the pinch of salt and whisk it until stiff.  Then add half the sugar, while you continue whisking until the mixture stands in peaks.  Add the remaining sugar, whisk the egg whites for 30 seconds more.  Using a metal spoon, fold in the cream and add the chopped pineapple a little at a time, stirring gently.  Transfer the parfait into a plastic container, cover and freeze until required.

      Take the parfait out of the freezer 20 minutes before serving.

  

 Sri Owen in London (home base)