Know Your Audience

This weekend, BoW and I hosted a little going-away party for Stretch. It was small gathering of friends in our back yard on a perfect summer Saturday.

There were, of course, last-minute errands to run that morning, so we stopped off at Sorrento's Italian Market to get a couple of sandwiches, along with some olives and baguettes for the party spread. She opted for the sausage while I got the combo (real bologna, capicola, and genoa slami.) The best part of the sandwich for me was chopping up some of their house giardiniera to top it.

Food for the party was simple, and I did not actually prepare anything other than a yogurt dip for the cudités. Regardless, the star was the cheese and sausage I laid out. (If I had made or even bought paté, I would call it charcuterie, but I didn't.) That and the cocktails.

Apparently, my friends are fans of meat and cheese and liquor. This should come as no surprise as I am clearly a fan of same. After all, it was I who provided both of those bottles of Sapphire (as much by volume as we used of tonic, by the way) and that half gallon of Knob Creek. Even BoW got a chance to mix, although one of her better efforts went down the hard way.

Don't worry, we have plenty more rosemary where that came from.

Whenever you throw a party on someone else's behalf, it's even more important that your guests enjoy themselves. We'll all miss Stretch terribly (that's enough, he's probably reading), but at least I know how to console our remaining friends in his absence: meat and cheese and liquor.