It always starts out the same way when we are going to have guests over for dinner. Mind you, this occasion comes only after I have recovered from the last dinner party, which by now has become fewer and farther in between. It leaves me vowing to present a less labor-intensive menu.
I sit in my green leather lounger, feet up on the footstool, pad and pen in hand making lists. I start with what I think will be the main courses, and from there I expand, adding and subtracting as I go along.
My friends are special to me and in this case Ann and George Krikorian are making an earlier than usual departure for sunny Florida and months ago I had promised to have them over for chee kufta. This get-together had been postponed several times and I was determined nothing would now impede our dinner plans. It preyed on my mind as it has a tendency to do when I make a promise that I must follow through.
Ann Krikorian is known as a terror in the kitchen and it could be a daunting task to entertain someone with her culinary ability, but I am willing to take the plunge.
My faithful sidekick is pressed into service for many chores and right now I admit I could not pull this off without his assistance. His to do list is long, necessitating a lot of driving. Word to the wise: never take their help for granted. You know how men like to be acknowledged and given credit.
This time it will be chee kufta, together with kheyma, sarma, bean salad, and potato casserole.
The cocktail table will be laden with mezzeh consisting of cheese, black olives, basterma, majoul dates, cashews, pumpkin seeds, and chocolates to go along with a white Mediterranean wine given to me by Alice and Sandi Nigoghosian when they came for dinner during the summer.
Dessert will have to be simplified with something from a good bakery like Holiday Market. Their lemon meringue pie is top notch so this time let’s try the coconut crème pie. I will pick up cheese and hamburger boeregs from Gary Reizian’s Uptown Catering in Keego Harbor to go along with fresh fruit, tea and coffee.
After fine-tuning, a final menu emerges. It becomes like an operatic production so that when the final curtain comes down the applause is deafening, at least that is for what I am shooting.
The shopping sources are many and far-flung, all the way from Uptown Catering in beautiful downtown Keego Harbor to International Market for Middle-eastern supplies and chee kufta meat in Sterling Heights, to Kroger and Holiday Market in Royal Oak. These errands are on Bob’s list for the morning of the dinner.
The phone conversation with Ali at International always goes the same way: “Hello Ali, this is Betty Kessel, you know, the Armenian lady.” “Yes, Yes,” he replies. “How are you,? Are you having company and you want chee kufta meat?”
“Yes,” is my reply then just to be sure there are no mistakes I begin the same litany of instructions. “I need three pounds of top round, absolutely no fat, ground three times for tomorrow around noon.”
Not as young as I once was, it now takes days to get it altogether from the shopping to house cleaning which entails moving piles of books and Armenian newspapers to an out of sight location. Fine china and glassware and flatware must be retrieved from hidden places and shined. The yard gets spruced up and today pumpkins are piled high in the front entry urns.
I pick a huge bouquet of pink and blue hydrangeas from my garden for the table centerpiece. Gorgeous!
My writing office presents the biggest problem. The moose head still remains on top of the bed and it will remain there. How I got it always creates interesting conversation. No, I did not shoot it. I retrieved it from a northern Michigan antique shop.
As far as I know there have been no complaints from those that I have had the privilege with whom we have shared bread, wine and Armenian cuisine. I feel it is my ethnic responsibility to prepare foods that I grew up eating and whose recipes I garnered from my mother Takouhie, an excellent cook and hostess.
I still have unsettling memories of what my mother used to say when her one and only sister would be coming into town from Niagara Falls, N.Y. for a stay with us. “Hye-deh aghchigner. Vodkee yelek. Morakour-neet bidi kah.” Translated, it meant, “Okay, attention girls, on your feet. Your aunt is coming into town and we have to get ready by spending a lot of time in the kitchen baking and cooking. Each of you will have to take turns entertaining her in your own homes too.” Groan.
It’s a massive operation requiring two heads, one level, that being my husband, the other not so much so, me. I always swear “this is the last time” and then after a full recovery from physical fatigue I decide to again test myself for the next round of entertaining. It’s always only a few people at a time. Among my bad habits is the constant of preparing large amounts resulting in leftovers to be eaten for the next two days.
“This is the last time,” I promise Bob and myself. “Next time it is strictly deli and take out middle-eastern foods. I can make it look appetizing.” He throws his hands into the air saying, “That’s what you said the last time.”
He’s right. Never say never. My plans in the future are to go forward with a pagharch party for my Keghetzi friends. Everyone knows how easy it is to shaghel ten pounds of flour forming it into a massive round Armenian type bread. And that’s just the beginning.
Perfectionists never change.
Betty Apigian-Kessel
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