They fussed, and it was wonderful
The last thing I said was, “Please don’t fuss.”
That phrase is the shorthand that polite guests use to thwart a host’s plans to spend a lot of time preparing for company. In other words, “We just want to visit. Please don’t go to a lot of trouble. “
The plan was for the farmer and me to pick up my parents and take a nice Saturday drive the hour or so to see our friends and former colleagues, Marcy and Frank. We’d been talking about doing this for a long time, and the planets finally lined up for all of us. In an effort to head off any plans they may have had to feed us, I told Marcy not to fuss.
I suppose fussing is part of visiting with friends. Rereading the first lines I wrote here, I’m stuck on that word “company.” That’s how we put it when we were kids. A planned visit from friends was “company coming” – news of it would spread through the house like the smell of the popcorn our mom would pop to prepare.
That was a time when people still showed up at their friends’ homes unannounced. A paneled station wagon would pull into the driveway on a warm July night and kids would spill out, joining us neighborhood kids on the lawn for a game of tag or to catch lightning bugs. There was no fussing – nor time for it. The extent of our parents’ prepping was putting some beers in the fridge and stirring up a batch of Kool-Aid for the kids.
Now, visiting with friends is more likely to happen in a coffee shop, or over lunch at a restaurant. When friends do come by my house, I go to the store for the good coffee or a bottle of wine. I like a few days’ notice so I can run the vacuum.
Marcy and Frank did fuss for us. First, we all went to their beautiful sunroom for appetizers from Frank’s enviable garden: fresh tomato salsa and bruschetta made from his roasted red and orange peppers. That would have been satisfying enough.
But then it was on to the dining room for a traditional Polish lunch: sausage and succotash and pierogi and cabbage rolls, which I love but don’t get often because I’ve never been successful at making them. They were actually juicy. Dessert was a plateful of yummy things, including the chocolate cake my mom brought, thank goodness, otherwise this visit would have felt too lopsided.
I detail the food here because it deserves the mention. Each dish represented hours of picking and shopping, chopping and cooking. What Marcy and Frank served up was the perfect afternoon of laughs and memories – offered between mouthfuls of deliciousness.
On the ride home, we all talked about what a good time we had. My mom said she especially liked those roasted peppers. She thought she’d try making them.
I explained how you have to bake the peppers, then peel off the burnt skin, remove the seeds, slice them and then season them.
“They’re a lot of work,” I said. All of that whole perfect afternoon was a lot of work.
I had told Marcy and Frank not to fuss. And of course they did, lucky us.
Beth Dolinar can be reached at cootiej@aol.com.