C'mon In!!

I just finished printing up my pretend menu for my pretend Thanksgiving dinner for tomorrow's home tour in Tarkio. The food would look pretty familiar....my original intention was to pick some fancy recipes with even fancier titles...after all, I wasn't really cooking these; it was all for appearance. But, as so often happens with my cooking ideas, time ran out and I resorted to the old familiar reliable foodstuffs, even for my pretend menu. My pretend menu is not just my wish list. After all, if that were the case, there would be prime rib and cranberry sauce and brown rice and any of Millie's rolls and asparagus and that great spinach salad that Ann and Matt make. And, in my pretend world, there would also be room in my stomach for both cherry pie AND pecan pie AND a small piece of that new fangled pumpkin dessert. Then, I would sit down with a tiny little very hot cup of espresso and rock and gather assorted sticky grandkids on my lap.

Well, enough of menu porn. I did include olives, lots of them, for all members of the family. And sweet potatoes for most. And green rice for a smaller number. And cornbread pudding for the kids. Truth be told, I think I could farm out this menu and each item would come back prepared just perfectly by the person who has the comparative advantage for that dish. And isn't that one of the jobs of the hostess? To make everyone look good?

I'm posting my pretend menu on the front table. The front room is ablaze with fall hues in primarily natural though non perishable materials. Annie brought a dozen or so fruit jars of cut mums in a myriad of flower forms. Now the front room has come to life with jars of real live flowers on the window sills.

And the beautiful feast table is also graced by a regal bouquet in the gigantic crystal compote. Nancy sent that along to class up the joint. People sitting at this table will undoubtedly speak in complete sentences about whatever erudite subject is introduced. That's the influence of a formal floral bouquet.

I am not usually a big candle person; given the superior capability of electric lights, a candle is mostly a worry to me (did I remember to blow them out, I ask myself in the middle of the sermon). However, the local Hobby Lobby had some pillars on sale that more resembled marble or some other exotic semi precious gem or metamorphic rock. And these are gracing the piano and mantle, stunning even if I don't light them.

I do wish someone was actually going to be using the third floor. I banished Blow Up Santa to the utility closet until his time arrives. I dusted and set up a card table with coasters and decks of cards ready for cut throat pitch games. For tamer but no less competitive fare, there is a scrabble game on the bar. I even put the seat back on the white bar stool!! The fridge is empty though and won't be stocked until a party breaks out upstairs.

Its taken more than a few lists to finish this tale. But I've enjoyed telling myself a tale of a full holiday house. In among the props are real live loaves of pumpkin and apple bread and harvest wrapped Dove chocolates. And, in Kenzie's gift bag, a nice bottle of red that we can break out at the end of the day, put our feet up, and toast all our visitors.