A Dinner Party

I hosted my first dinner party last night.

I've hosted jointly before. But this one was in my Mansard roof, in my kitchen. For my new Cornell lab group and boss.



Perhaps it was not a standard dinner party. It was mostly brassicas. And the justification of this party was a Website Launch Party. Specifically, one of my first tasks as employee was to revamp the website, hosted by wordpress. I got rid of the tall office buildings of text, the stacks of links, unburied the interesting photos lost in the depths and brought them accessible. I bugged my teammates for details about their projects and made little profile pages for each. I learned how to navigate wordpress platform and read countless well-designed blogs about designing blogs well.

(Please visit our site! https://scslabcu.wordpress.com/)

I was wrist-deep in bike grease and crud on the front porch, changing my rear flat, when Professor Boss arrived lugging two potted plants and plenty of beer.  How strange it is to have one's boss out of context like this. And good. So we opened beers with a bike tire lever and talked about things that weren't perennial grains, rolling soybeans, or collecting soil samples. I bumbled around my upside-down bicycle and he remarked how nice it was to have an expansive porch.

Then the rest of my lab group arrived. I am extraordinarily blessed by getting to work with a group of clever, motivated, interested and interesting young people. Their partners are lovely too. Tall Sophia arrived with her big plume of hair, wearing heels and saying she refuses not to not wear heels because of her height. Sweet Mariah told stories of the cats at the humane shelter where she volunteers. We laughed about the brassicas, gossiped a bit about some faculty and local growers, and dreamed of agronomy conferences held in Puerto Rico.

And it was indeed brassica night. "P.S. Remember it's Bring Your Wok To Work Day" I'd reminded my boss in the bottom of a logistics email; I was needing to borrow his wok so I could make Sichuan Pepper cabbage stir fry. Everyone leaned around my kitchen, talking animatedly, beers encased in my strange coozie collection, while I sprinkled and poured ingredients in the wok, making up a cabbage recipe. Professor Boss chopped a kohlrabi (more brassica) and Soil Master Chris had brought a kale-lentil salad (the final brassica).

I felt duly-dinner party-ry because I served my cabbage stir-fry in my cut glass bowl (gift from dear generous Aunt Marge) AND I had enough chairs and plates for everyone. We fit around my estate-sale special table.

It takes me halfway through the meal, however, to remember to offer out yellow cloth napkins (gift from dear Grandma June). Oh well, better late than never.

I noticed later one of those napkins sticking out of Soil Master Chris's back-pocket, exactly like the soil sampling rag that had been back there this morning.

Having them in my Mansard Roof was a pleasure; I'm learning I thoroughly enjoy hosting people. And I got to "play" (i.e., "sound") the organ bed and introduce everyone to Oliver the Fish and his efficient little cleaning service (algae eater). I had Celtic music playing on my Dad's boat-sized ancient boom box and evening sun cascaded into my Mansard. It was lovely.