As someone who loves to cook, I can honestly say that the thought of entertaining anyone who doesn’t want pulled pork and beer out of a cooler is paralyzing.  I love having family around, but pulling a turkey out of the oven and discovering that while it is beautiful and brown on the outside it is stone cold bleeding on the inside has made me wary of entertaining.  

I don’t know how to set a table "right" and was recently reminded by a visiting mother that I was raised to have a hand towel in the kitchen and mine was missing.    My napkins come out of a plastic wrapper and you have to pluck one out of the holder yourself.  Music will be provided by my husband, whose idea of dinner listening is likely to be Led Zeppelin or 3 Doors Down.  My children burp and laugh at themselves before they will remember to excuse themselves, and if you sit at my table, you run a very real risk of having something spilled on you by a burping, laughing child hollaring "EXCUSE ME" at the top of its lungs.

 I won’t even get into the state of the "guest" bathroom.  Suffice it to say that the soap comes out of a jolly green octopus and the boy can’t aim yet. We entertain at our guests’ peril.

I had a client die recently and had a brief bit of time at home to do a lot of "housekeeping & cooking". Piles of files, put up the pending drapes, planted some gorgeous flowers in my entryway pots, tore up old to do lists- and yes-have had some home cooked meals for my sweetheart with candles and a sparkling clean house. He walked in, swept me off my feet with honey love, and now I’m back in the saddle with a new client, running my arsy off.

Surprisingly- Mr. wonderful shared the other night-just how much that "baking" sanctuary and more relaxed atmosphere has meant to him. Hmmmmmm…..I’m pondering this a bit more-I thought he wanted the buckos coming in-but He told me it didn’t matter anymore. It was as sweet for me as it was for him. I can go both ways…crazy over work, crazy over the perfect home—-just downright high expectations and entanglements-along with a few dinner parties here and there. Yet I noticed….I’ve been so much more relaxed when I was doing the part time work. We’re all gifted differently-and get pleasure out of different activities, but one things for sure. Women are saturated with joy when they create environmental beauty & order in the areas that they have talent. This is what brings happiness, love and peace. I always get off on playing piano in the evenings and after dinner parties as well as sketching faces in my Latte’ Cafe’s as my husband reads his Chptr. of proverbs to me in the early morning hours. Why do we run amuck, stressed out, feeling we have to prove something-when there is a still small voice speaking to our heats-"I will give you rest?"

So—-this time I’m chillin’, keeping my hrs down, not doing business overnights very often…..and gettin’ some kitchen cinnamon from my guy to go with that honey I’ve started to enjoy again.

I do understand that we differ on how we conduct our social lives. I like entertaining though I haven’t done much these last years, partly because I’ve become odd woman out, an older single woman who entertains but no one reciprocates.

Years ago, when I taught myself how to cook in my first independent apartment, I realized that I would never be able to host a traditional meals, but I did practice on friends who, I realize, were very patient.

 All I came up with was I DO IT MY WAY, which meant that I wanted to be part of the conversation at my dinner parties, and I didn’t want to go back and forth changing dishes, offering many courses; you know the drill. I do enjoy cooking and preparing, and I am good at organization, but spare me the 3 forks, dessert spoons, many different glasses, or even matching dishes. I don’t own a set of anything, like to improvise, and without much flurry or worry, and I can get a group together quickly and feed them, I hope, to their delight.

But I realize that not everyone enjoys doing all that, so don’t apologize; it is not a sin. Also, upmanship and perfectionism are rampant among hostesses with the mostesses.

 I’ve sewed all my life, was taught how to be useful, not ornamental, but I choose what I want to do. I alter recipes I admire, and I’ve purchased Martha’s shower curtains—but I folllow my  own tune, and I’ll never earn as much as Martha for my domestic skills. 

At this stage in social history, we women can choose the roles we prefer. I acknowledge Martha’s business acumen and her need to organize and perform, but many of us are incapable or uninterested in emulating her. So, be it. 

Regarding the incinerated dinner, couldn’t the hostess have pulled the fuse or flipped the circuit breaker, or turned off the gas at the gas line?

The big problem here is that for so many years, hundreds of them, women were to ones  to do the meals, the children, cleaning, laundry, farm hand, seamstress, and everything else.  Now we have earned the right to choose what we want to do in our lives.  Margo, you have found your strenghts and weaknesses, many women have not.  They are still trying to do the "wife thing".  I say, relax, if you enjoy cooking, etc., do it.  If not, don’t.  You want to entertain, call a friend or caterer.  Give a party at home or in a resturant, no big deal.

Life is too short to be caught up in the "book of rules."  Make your own rules.  Just like Margo, Martha or ME.

Dear Margo,

 I burn Jell-O.

 TV dinners for life,

Marsha Stewart

Every bit of what I’m about to write is true.

I am over 60 and I have a virgin oven. It is not broken [though I don’t know for sure since I’ve never tried it].

I come from a family of wonderful cooks. At age 11 my mother tried to help me make a cake for a school bake sale. I burned half the kitchen down. Three fire engines came and all were put to use.

You know the old saying about being good in the bedroom or in the kitchen? My mother told each of my husbands before we married that for their sakes she prayed I was good in bed.

One husband was an excellent cook [guests came over for Thanksgiving that he cooked], the next spouse had an open-ended expense account [we took all our guests to a restaurant for Thanksgiving]. Now the current [and final] "better half" couldn’t believe I was a total loss in the kitchen and decided I would assist him, the head chef, for our first Thanksgiving together.  Thank goodness he’s a surgeon - they come in handy when you cut yourself slicing celery [my only job - he was starting me off slowly]. Undaunted, the next year I was in charge of stirring the pots on the stove. That was going fine until I picked up one of the pots without protection. [Another trip to the ER.] The third year he planted me in the dining room. I was in charge of conversation. It was going fine right through dinner, until I realized we needed more dinner rolls. So quietly I got up while everyone was talking and went into the kitchen. Where did he hide the rolls? I looked all over. Then suddenly silence followed by the sound of 10 chairs scraping on the hardwood floor. You see, they noticed I was gone and flew into the kitchen to get me before I could hurt myself. Not a good reputation.

I have since built a list of the best caterers in the area.

Why did I flash on that old saw of a movie The Diary of a Mad Housewife where the battered wife is pressured to entertain, she gives a New Year’s Eve party and hires a caterer to make omelettes, only to have her "oh that" bored social sceners of Manhattan think she is so "last year," and then her guests steal spouses and pre-Columbian pottery. 

Go either two ways.  Rent space at a restaurant, or do what Dominick Dunne did with his pre-Capote L.A. Black and White party:  empty out the house, put everything in storage, hire a film set decorator to create photogenic grottos, and put the kids in a hotel.

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