DINNER IS SARVED!

 

The other day my High School reunion committee came over for another meeting about an upcoming reunion. Prior to their arrival, I set up the large dining room table with cups and saucers, and plates for the various cakes they and I bring to the table. I start laying out the cups and saucers, and start to get carried away, placing the cup handles and dish patterns all in one and the same direction. Equally placed distance from the saucer is the plate with a fork and napkin, and I even put a little spoon at the top of the setting. I come to the last place setting and discover I am short one cup and have only a chipped plate, no good! I look and realize, this is no Downton Abbey, and know I have more cups and plates, but were did they all go?

I call TLW who is at work and she informs me that they are probably up in #2 Son’s room, where he is asleep in dream world on a Saturday. Sure enough he brings down all the cups, and dishes he has in his room, enough to feed the whole Olympic village at Sochi, Russia.

Many years ago, when mom ran the show, we as a large family of 5 kids, had very few dinners where the butler was needed. Mom had a set of China, but that was for extreme rare occasions when someone was baptized, or when we would get married, that she would use it, instead she had everyday china, and her silverware was of a very historic nature.

I had a Fred Flintstone glass for all occasions from mom’s everyday china, be it breakfast, lunch or dinner. If you know high society, there is a glass for all occasions and reasons in one night’s dinner place setting. We had all kinds of glasses for one occasion: it was a water glass. Dad had a wine glass, as did mom, the ‘decanter’ was a gallon of Villa Amando, sitting in the center of the table; it was Dad’s centerpiece. The knives and forks and spoons, all a conglomeration of historic proportions from both grandmother’s collections and what you could get from a five and dime store for a nickel each. Ours was a very colorful table setting, unlike Downton Abbey. We didn’t call it all ‘place setting’ it was more a pitch setting, as we quickly dealt the plates out so we could get back to Gabby Hayes and a cowboy movie.

On some occasions, we had napkins: paper, and sometimes a towel was passed around. “Hey Ma, how come we don’t use paper napkins more?” “What do you think I’m made of money?”

Now there was no such thing as a butter plate, since we didn’t use butter at dinner, be it mashed potatoes, beans or bread, no butter was the norm. There was a saltshaker on the table, but you never reached for it, if you did, mom or dad would react: “You’re putting all that salt on it!” “But ma, I was just moving the saltshaker!”

Dinnertime was a very sacred time as we gathered together. We all had to be at the table, and if we weren’t, we didn’t eat later. It was a time to discuss what we did; we wanted to do and to ask questions. Questions would be followed usually by dad’s answers about his childhood, and how he lived growing up. Mom would give us a usual lecture about God and country, and behavior modifications she was planning for me especially.

The food was always delicious, even if we didn’t appreciate it all the time, but we were fed well, we were clean and our table was set, all we needed was the call from our butler: “Dinner is sarved!”