a slightly sad start

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So I hosted some friends of ours this past Saturday for a fun dinner full of overindulgence, wine, water (oops) and food. I tried a whole whack of new recipes, as usual guinea pigging my unsuspecting (or perhaps at least slightly suspecting) guests on new recipes, culinary experiments and delightful nibblies.

Sadly, I had all of these delusions of a wonderfully sophisticated appetizer....belgian endive leaves, capped with fresh figs, crumbled feta and candied pecan halves....sweet, salty, acidic, all in one....it sounded like a rather enticing beginning to what I hoped would be a tasty meal....

Well....I was foiled. Normally, when I have people over for dinner, I do most of my prep the night before (i.e., shopping, making soup, dessert, etc.) so the day I of, I usually need only worry about salad and bread. It didn't quite work out that way this time, so at 10am Saturday morning, hubs and I whipped out to our friendly neighbourhood Loeb to pick up the things I needed.

They didn't have endives. They didn't have figs. They didn't even have freaking pecans! Clearly, the endive appetizer was not meant to be.

It was actually kinda funny, I'd whipped through the store (while I sent hubs to the butcher and liquor shops) and then wandered back to the produce/cheese section. It was there that hubs found me, standing, lost, forlorn and highly peeved that I had to think of a new appetizer on the spot.

Eventually (after a few minutes of staring and scowling at the cheese in front of me), I decided on something quick and easy - smoked salmon with cream cheese on rye. I had capers, red onion and little slivers of lemon to garnish. It wasn't quite what I initially wanted, but I think it did the trick, especially because dinner was subjected to a weeeeeeeeeeee delay.

Totally my fault too. Some days, I really just shouldn't be doing anything that requires coordination. I was pouring water. And, because I'd set the table beforehand, I was pouring it at the table.

Bad bad BAD idea for me. Of course our Brita filter doesn't hold quite enough for six glasses of water....so part-way through, I had to refill the thing. And by this point, I was getting impatient for dinner (hubs was late) and didn't want my guests to feel forced to stay uber late.....so I made the fatal error of NOT waiting for the water to gently and oh-so-slowly trickle its way through that blasted filter.

The next thing that happened is perhaps a bit too obvious.....of course the lid popped off the Brita. Of course the Brita is super huge and like a litre of water splashed across the table. And of course I used a table cloth and not place mats. And of course I have a brand new custom solid maple dining table. Gah.

Hence another dinner delay. Had to UNset the table, and throw the table cloth in the dryer (because OF COURSE it's the only tablecloth I have that fits the new table).

Brutal.

But at least we had salmon to tide us over!