Since Dave and I are both major introverts, we don’t have people over that often. When we do, we want them to know we love them and since food equals love (don’t argue, it is so), I want to make something good. But I can’t make anything good. Even though, I’ve been cooking reasonably well my entire life, suddenly I have never made anything except Spaghettio’s with cut up hotdogs in it, which is odd because I never ate that even as a kid.

So instead I go to the cookbooks and the internet; make something I’ve never tried before and then feed it to my unsuspecting friends (at least they’re friends when they arrive). Usually this goes well enough so that our guests can at least pretend to be delighted.

This makes me believe that it’s OK to get even more experimental. An example of this was when I decided to do a fondue dinner. This wasn’t going to be just melted cheese and bread cubes. I went all out with meat and vegetables cooked at the table, then a cheese fondue and a chocolate fondue for dessert.

It was fun. By spending only three times as much as the fancy restaurant downtown would have charged and the whole day chopping things up, I was able to invite some friends for a “Come at your own risk” dinner. I was open about the possibility of death by food poisoning, and we all said a prayer and dug in. I had a great time, and everyone is still here, although now that I think of it, they’ve never come back to eat… 

Of course, when it comes to family, they are obligated to suffer through any experiment, although we do have an unspoken rule to give safety warnings if necessary. 

We all knew that Catherine’s real Christmas pudding would be an adventure. She found an authentic-ish English recipe without alcohol where you mix up the ingredients on the last Sunday before Advent – Stir it up Sunday (this year on Nov 23). The scary part is that you DON’T put it in the refrigerator until you set it on fire and eat it on Christmas Eve. This sort of thing leads to fun text conversations:

Me: I have some holly to decorate your pudding.

C: You can’t use holly! It’s poisonous! Mind you, the pudding might be too. 

Me: It’s just a decorative sprig. We won’t eat it. 

C: I don’t think anything else sketchy should go near the pudding. 

Actually the pudding wasn’t terrible — although it did make me appreciate how tough it must have been in Dicken’s England where something like this was the highlight of the year. 

That’s why I was caught off guard when Dave responded so negatively to the diet apple crisp. It wasn’t a dangerous dish, and I thought it wasn’t half bad (for a fake apple crisp anyway). Oh my, no. This abomination must NEVER happen again. In 36 years of marriage, this might be the only true ORDER he’s ever given me. I’ve made many much worse things, but OK, OK, the crisp is permanently off the menu. 

But the point of all this rambling is that I’m getting better! Not long ago, I tried to make beef kofta. It sounded so good! I bought the fancy spices. They were … bland. Basically hamburgers only less so. Then we invited friends over. For once remembering that new recipes were not always to be trusted, I pushed past false memories of Spaghettios and dredged up a memory of a weird, but good dinner we had one time. But the more I thought about it, the less I was sure that I could replicate the success. So, minutes before Dave went shopping, I changed my mind and picked something I’d had made TWICE before. It was a breakthrough moment. Our friends have no idea how lucky they were. 

But go ahead and come on over for the holidays. There will be lots of things to choose from, so you’re almost guaranteed to be safe. Or you could just do what some of our other friends are doing and suggest we go out to dinner. Naturally, I’ll recommend some new, untried restaurant, but if you offer to pay I’ll usually let you have your way.

Anneli Byrd is an academic adviser in Weber State University’s General Studies and Exploratory advising.