Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

As a born and bred goody two-shoes, and a perpetual Honor Roll student with a decade-long career as a Girl Scout of the United States of America, I NEVER asked or needed an adult to buy alcohol for me.

          But as a middle-aged woman I am always on the lookout for an adult who knows how to pick out a good steak. I know my Pick of the Chix and I can spot from three aisles away the green label of the ground beef that is laced with neither fat nor antibiotics. But when I had to host the AAUW gourmet party I needed help because I wouldn’t know a beef tenderloin if it slapped me across the face!

          This happens every time I need a pot roast because I can never remember the kind of meat that makes the best pot roast. So I hang around the meat section until someone comes by who looks like they have been around the block a few times with a side of beef. Once I made the embarrassing mistake of asking the meat man at Wal Mart for advice on finding flank steak. He was wearing a white coat, sunglasses and carried a clip board and pen.

          “Do you have flank steak?” I asked. The guy just stared at me through his aviators. And then I realized. He was the meat man from Village Market! “Oh, I’m sorry! You’re a spy aren’t you?”

          For advice on tenderloin I called tender friends. I ran up to Meijer’s. Now I am one of the few shoppers who has the phone number to the Meijer’s meat department. And then I called my husband’s cousin at Bob’s Processing. YES!! Of course they had beef tenderloin! I ran out there, chatted with my husband’s second cousin while the meat man ducked into the freezer. And there it was -- the beef tenderloin. When he told me the price I acted very nonchalant, like I was not shocked that a piece of meat can cost the same as a computer printer. Plus, like a 21-year-old buying booze for the first time, I wanted to act very savvy in front of my in-laws, so I wrote the check like I was writing it for a Scholastic Book order. I was so cool.

          About 24 hours later, after thawing it and caring for it gently like a three-pound pet that’s been out in the cold for too long, I snapped into PEOPLE ARE COMING OVER action! First that means yelling at my kids to get up off the couch, get off the computer, turn off the TV and FOR GOD’S SAKE HELP ME! (For more information, watch the rerun of 60 Minutes in which Mentally Disabled Parents are Raised by Above Average Children.)

          “PEOPLE! HELP ME OUT!” I yelled, “HOW MANY CUPS ARE IN A QUART?”

          “PUT THE TABLECLOTH ON THE TABLE!”

          “It doesn’t fit.”

          “GO GET THE QUILT OFF OUR BED!”

          “Couldn’t we just use a fitted sheet?”

          “NO!”

          “YOU GUYS, SET THE TABLE AND I WANT IT DONE PROPERLY. FORK ON THE LEFT, KNIFE ON THE RI --- “

          “’Knife on the right, because knife rhymes with right.’ And that is such a LIE mother! Knife and right do NOT rhyme.”

Like Rory Kennedy going to Appalachia to film how the other half lives, the company came. They ate. They laughed. We drank mint juleps made by a husband who brought all the ingredients including the glasses. That meant I did not have to rewash any of my glasses which are all crusted with a film of mysterious sediment from a General Electric dishwasher that needs to be taken out into the backyard and shot. They offered to help with the dishes and I said, “No, I’ll get them next week.” Then they left.

           And after they left I walked to the sink to get rid of the bloody plastic wrap that had lingered in the sink for hours. I picked up a mint leaf, let the pink juice and water drip off the plastic, and there on the label were two words that explain why I need an adult to buy my meat.

Filet Mignon.