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Show High Time on TlhiiraBW7Dinii M IPsdoHw By FLORENCE BITTNER Parties are not my normal habitat, but there comes a time in the life of everv dutiful du-tiful housewife when she must roll up her sleeves and have at all those obligations for past invitations. FACED WITH the necessity of being hostess for a night, I suffer quite a lot and since I have never seen any future in suffering in silence, my entire family shares my tribulations. tribula-tions. All 1 have to do, I figure, is prepare a house which looks like no one ever lived in it, a meal which tastes as if I have spent days in the preparation and still manage to appear as if I have not such much as bent a delicate pink finger in extra exertion and vve really live this way all the time. THERE ARE several ways I can approach my turn as hostess. If the group is larger than the number I can seat at my extended dining room table, ta-ble, I seriously consider two things. A: Do I really have to have many people? If the answer to this is an implacable yes then I consider B: Can I afford to hire a caterer. If the answer to B is no, then a third alternative alter-native presents itself. How about one of those invitations that say come to dinner at my house and bring part of the food. ' HOW ABOUT that kind of invitation? This is the most prevalent type of dinner party in my neighborhood and it is usually successful because when asked to provide food, women will really extend themselves. Now and then I am backed into an inescapable corner and have to invite guests to a dinner which I , prepare myself. This is the real nitty gritty and I have learned not to go to the glossy home magazines for help. THE PRETTY magazines suggest a buffet dinner, but that's not for my house. People are supposed to serve themselves from steaming chaffing dishes and trays of cold meats and cheeses and relishes, but my man thinks any meal at which he has to serve himself is a flop to begin with. Laden with roll and butter, drink, brimming plate and a celery stick, you have to try to find an empty chair without tripping over feet. Forget it. That's entertainment? ANOTHER WAY the shiny magazines suggest for meeting meet-ing social obligations is the back yard barbecue. There are a few drawbacks here also. al-so. Number 1, the man of the house is supposed to take over as cook at the outdoor stove. Not my man. When we said our marriage vows, he proclaimed me cook, and he is prone to keep his word. I tell him he doesn't know where I keep the stove, but he says nonsense. Of course he knows where the stove is, but how do you turn it on? Anyhow, he spent two thousand dollars remodeling my kitchen, so what for do we need to go outside and hassle with a bonfire? A FRIEND of mine decided to settle old invitations with a sit down dinner and she wanted to put on a real spread so planned to serve standing rib roast. Her butcher said it is a waste of money to buy less than a four rib roast and you need to figure two to three servings per rib and she was having twelve people, so she said, OK, cut me a 6 rib roast. He obliged and smiled and said, that will be twenty eight dollars, please. Since she had planned twenty dollars for the whole shebang, she was somewhat jolted and began immediately to take tucks in her spread. She settled for three casseroles and four set salads, but she did fancy for dessert. She served butterscotch butter-scotch sauce on the ice cream with a flaming sugar cube on top. Her husband muttered about the cost of burning sugar, so she didn't tell him about the rib roast he didn't get. WHEN I take my turn as hostess, I have found I get along with the least pain by serving the old family favorites and I don't even ask if my guests liked them. Usually they are too polite to let me know if they don't and most women like just about any meal they don't have to cook or clean up after. I just give thanks that I don't have to entice my guests with soup, fish, salad, chicken, roast beef, three vegetables, a choice of roast pork or veal cutlets and then two kinds of dessert and finally assorted cheeses. I FOUND such a menu in an old book which added the information in-formation that following this simplified little repast, the hostess had appeared "gracious, relaxed and elegant." I'll bet her servants were doing her perspiring. |