A memorable, colorful Earth Day menu
Quintessential Washington, D.C., socialite and former Washington Post reporter Sally Quinn writes in her 1997 book “The Party — A Guide to Adventurous Entertaining” of how the only thing she cooked for gatherings as a young woman was spaghetti.
“Since I only had one menu, I wouldn’t invite people for dinner, I would invite them over for spaghetti, preempting them from saying, ‘Oh God, not spaghetti again.’ ”
Quinn, of course, learned to cook and entertain A-listers in the ’80s and early ’90s as wife of famed Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee. She admits in her book that she’d neglected to tell him she wasn’t a cook at all.
Soon after they moved into their apartment, the couple invited Bradlee’s old friend Eppie Lederer (a.k.a. Ann Landers) for dinner and in a panic, Quinn followed a friend’s advice and bought frozen stuffed bell peppers, then covered them in sour cream.
Her duplicitous plan went awry when Lederer asked for the recipe and continued to follow up in later months trying to acquire it. Upon learning of his wife’s trickery, Bradlee urged her to fess up.
She wrote a Dear Ann Landers letter and spilled the beans, asking for advice. Fortunately, Lederer was forgiving and found Quinn’s debacle and follow-up letter hilarious.
Quinn’s book, though 20 years old, is full of timeless advice on hosting – from pre-party anxiety to timing, seating and flowers.
It’s also chock-full of other funny stories about her dinner parties. Like the lobster dinner where the guest list included Carl Bernstein (of Watergate fame) and his writer wife, the late Nora Ephron, when it came out accidentally that Bernstein was having a dalliance with another woman.
In the middle of a conversation, “Nora stood up, asked for a bottle of red wine (we were drinking white) and poured it over Carl’s head.”
If you’ve invited friends and family into your home for a meal, then you most likely have stories of your own.
At one illustrious Thanksgiving that our family will forever remember, my mother put the turkey in the oven early in the morning. After an hour or so, the kitchen was not filled with that wonderful browning turkey aroma. We finally opened the oven, and the bird looked unchanged. Then we discovered that my mother had turned the knob to selfclean rather than roast. (We still laugh about that.)
In honor of Earth Day today, gather your family or friends for a small plates springtime lunch of earthly delights that hopefully will be memorable only for the wonderful food. The menu includes a radicchio, blood orange and endive salad, accompanied by cilantro, lime and green chile crab cakes and small delectable packets of puff pastry stuffed with avocado, chutney and bacon.
Using just a few ingredients in each dish, including avocado and salsa verde in two of the recipes, cuts down on prep time. To make it really simple, serve the bottle of blood orange sparkling lemonade — used in the dressing — over ice as a refreshing bright drink.
A riot of spring color is what comes to mind when you set it all on the table for your guests.
Amy DeWall Dadmun is a Milwaukee area food and garden writer. Email her at amydadmun@gmail.com.