How to Stretch a Meal

Just the other day, I overheard a friend at
work talking on the phone to his out-of-town spouse. He was complaining that
his teenage daughter had brought a last-minute friend to dinner the night before,
and there wasn’t enough food for everyone to eat. His story made me wish I had
put this post up sooner. I know he follows this blog and he might have
benefited from a similar experience I just had.

Recently, Santa Maria invited the daughter of an old friend
over for dinner. The daughter was fresh out of college and was visiting New
York. After a bit of back and forth, she was
set to come to dinner one Saturday night. We invited two other friends and
their elementary-school-age son over too, to make a bit of a party out of the
evening. An hour or so before the dinner, Santa Maria got a text from the
out-of-town daughter: she wanted to know if she could bring three friends.

Santa Maria, one of the softest-hearted people this side of
the Rio Grande (she married me, after all) told her “yes,” and said to me,
“what can you say in a situation like that?” In the interest of marital harmony, I kept my response to myself.

And just like that, I needed to stretch the dinner I had
made, but I wasn’t concerned. A few years ago, something like this would have caused a spike in my blood pressure and have stressed me out, but I've learned a lot since then.The biggest thing I've learned is to stop fighting reality. Plus, I had a few
tricks up my sleeve. I was serving corn on the cob, and though I had counted
out enough ears for the original group, by breaking each one in half I
instantly doubled the amount of corn I could offer.

I took some black beans out of the freezer (the three
additional guests, I had been told were vegetarians, though what showed up was
two extra meat-eaters and a libertarian) and I carefully arranged the other things I
was serving: Chicken Tikka Masala, Kale Salad, and Dahl.

I arranged everything on a counter in the kitchen, for
people to serve themselves. I was a bit short on the chicken (times being what
they are, especially in publishing, of course), so I put that dish at the end of the
line. If people started with the kale salad, then moved on to the rice and
beans and dahl, and put an ear (or half an ear as the case might have been) of corn on
their plate, they wouldn’t really have any room for the chicken. It worked
brilliantly. Everyone was forced to go back for seconds, and the slower people
eat, the more full they feel. If I had been really pressed for food, I could also have
boiled a couple of eggs and served those, too. That trick worked well this
summer.

In the end, I didn’t mind at all that so many people showed
up. In fact, I reveled in it. It’s not often that I get to eat with some bright
young people with such wide political leanings. I was honored to feed them. As
always, youth must be served.