hosting and boasting

After the Kippur ended, I realized that (literally) the next day was Shabbat. And I had no Shabbat plans. It just crept up on me, especially after the intense Day of Atonement. Hastily conferencing with Meredith, I decided to have a little Shabbat dinner at my apartment. I suddenly got very excited, because this was my first opportunity to host Shabbat dinner.

We can only fit six, seated, at the kitchen table, and only have meat and milk dish sets for six (yes, my kitchen is kosher; more on that in a later post), so I had four classmates over: Meredith, Deana, LuAnne, and Jordan. Including Adam and me, that made six. I got a little overambitious, and cooked a (hopefully) scrumptious meal throughout Friday afternoon.

The menu:

Roasted chicken, marinated in and roasted with white wine, apple juice, thyme, apple slices, red onions
Roasted sweet potatoes with thyme and apple cider vinegar
Couscous with toasted pine nuts, apricots, and raisins
Sautéed eggplant with thyme and apple cider vinegar
Dessert: baked apples filled with chocolate

It was an ambitious menu, and while there are about three dozen things I would have done differently, I’d made nothing before and it all came out eatible at worst and delicious at best. The crowd was loquacious and jovial, lots of flowing wine and an extended, tremendous, postprandial song session of Shabbes zemiros.

Since the meal was apple-themed (due to both being in the month of Tishrei and celebrating the Jewish new year still, as well as it being fall and apples are in season), for a late night oneg (fun) we played Apples-To-Apples. Thanks to David and Alea (thanks, really), this game is now one of my favorites. It’s addicting. Adam brought it with him (thanks Adam) and so we played.

I dominated the first part of the game, and technically won, but we kept playing but by the end of game Meredith had the most adjective cards. It’s a buttload of fun and I and very excited about hosting many more Shabbat dinners and then playing Apples-To-Apples, and flaunting my mad ironic/irreverent/cleaver/funny word skills.