a full house

Maybe the most important things about food and wine are the people next to you at the table and all of the wonderful things that only seem to happen prior to, during, or after the preparation and eating of a meal. Still kitchenless, Allie and I joined our dear friends Jen and Mike (and their kids, and brother and sister-in-law, and parents) for a weekend of endless plates of delicious food and bottomless glasses of wine. Friends are the BEST; and spending time with a great big family is indescribably special.
After standing in Jen's kitchen, jumping outside to pull some steaks off the grill, talking to her brother Andy about how his huge treat for the weekend (pounds and pounds of specialty Italian foods shipped up to Connecticut from New York) wasn't going to arrive in time (argh!), fixing drinks, and opening bottles of wine, I was a part of something we rarely see in our quiet little house down the street where only a puppy joins Allie and me for dinner (if he isn't napping in the other room): a full house. Children ate pasta with homemade sauce while the adults opened a bottle of easy-drinking Bogle Phantom and dabbled in some gin cocktails and Manhattans on the rocks; we noshed on salami, cheese, and olives...everyone working together...
...in fact, the porterhouse steaks on Sunday night were truly a team effort: Mike lit the grill and gave the go-ahead that it was hot enough to cook, Andy looked at the steaks while Jen seasoned them and declared the cook time: "4-5 minutes/side and then tent them under foil", Jen put them on the grill, Allie set the timer, I tended them twice and followed Andy's recommendation, Mike came through to take a look..."looking good!"...And, Andy nailed it, they were a perfect medium rare. I felt like a Harlem Globetrotter.
We opened some wine and talked about it...we opened other wine and didn't talk about it... Nobody got caught up in the details and yet, it was all the details that made the weekend so delicious...and I'm not really talking about what we ate.