Turnip says:
Due to my recent hosting anxieties, it’s been a long time since we’ve had people over for dinner. But when friends from Switzerland called to say they’d be in town for just a few days and they’d love to see us, what could I possibly do but assure them we’d have steaks on the barbecue and beer in the fridge by 6:30pm? “Could you make it 6:00pm?” they said, “Our kids will be so jet-lagged.”
I am now sitting on my porch at 7:05pm. I have checked all phones and email in case they’re lost, or someone has taken ill. My kids have dragged their daycare-addled selves upstairs to watch TV, stupefied with a hunger despite stirring through the 7-layer-dip I assembled. (Son #2 would normally be in the bath by now on his way to bed). The spinach salad is getting limper by the second, and the neighbor’s cherry pie I put in the oven for the occasion will be stone cold by dessert time. I’ve drunk a second glass of wine on my empty stomach and now feel a bit muddled as well as anxious.
The unsettled feeling provokes a flashback to six years ago, when Stag organized a postpartum food tree (friends were scheduled to drop off dinners for us in the weeks following Son #2’s birth). This same friend lived close by at the time, but she arrived on her day ninety minutes behind schedule, on foot, with a salmon-and-spinach concoction not really intended to be stored long or transported any distance. She’d also brought two of her own tots, whose clamoring for a spontaneous play-date was backed by their mum’s reasoning that “Well, we’ve come all this way. . .”
What makes people late for dinner (or with dinner)? I mean, our friends are wonderful people—once they finally unloaded their clan from the rented car, it was a warm reunion that reminded me how generous, humorous and kind-spirited they are. The impression created by their chronic lateness—selfishness, arrogance, carelessness—doesn’t at all reflect what they’re really like.
Or does it? A quick Googling of “chronic lateness” sets off an avalanche of judgmental diagnoses: “unrealistic goal-setting,” “drama-seeking behavior,”“inner brat,” “self-sabotage,” “lazy thinking.” Others, it would seem, feel as jilted as me when forced to wait for someone late.
My mom would send one of us to holler at the bottom of the stairs to my dad that dinner was ready. He’d have headed up to change after work and not come down; we’d often sit down to eat with his food on his plate getting cold, have to choke down our first few bites through Mom’s fuming. An unfortunate mealtime stress to grow up with, granted–but as primary cook in my own home I did and do see her point.
So take it from an Ambivore: A dinner party is different than a regular party, folks. You can be late for a regular party—if the invite says 7, go ahead and roll in at 8 with your bottle of wine; the only people who’ll be there before you are those with sitters with curfews, anyway. But if someone is cooking for you, arrive on time. Lay your flowers on the kitchen counter, sling your coat over the nearest barstool, roll up your sleeves and say, “What can I chop?” Say, “Oh my God, is that cherry pie?”
And then say, “I’m making quiche the Sunday after next; please come over”—because the only thing better than a punctual dinner guest is a dinner guest who reciprocates promptly, and with enthusiasm.
