Making a meal of it with resolutions

Home Truths: I met up with a friend and mentor while still buoyed by the possibilities of 2016 and set some resolutions.

Le Creuset Warehouse Sale for Shop Smart

I met up with a friend and mentor while still buoyed by the possibilities of 2016 and set some resolutions to keep this year. Never having seriously made or succeeded in keeping any resolutions before, maybe because of my aversion to the word, we decided three might be doable.

My first resolution is to make time for my new niece, who’s nearly five months old. She’s adorable and despite having been spit upon and drooled on, I have yet to change a nappy.

It’s fascinating to watch the changes in her when I see her on the weekends and I look forward to being able to read a book to her with her following along.

My second resolution is to take up a regular activity, something that will expand my circle of friends, be fun and include some physical activity without prompting flashbacks to school sports classes.

I tried social softball at the end of last year and had a ball. I actually managed to hit the ball but my throwing arm was a betrayal of women everywhere. This year, or at least this month, I have decided to try something different — something that involves rhythm but not hand-eye co-ordination.

I’m taking up belly dancing again, Monday nights.

It’s a safe choice as there’s no partner whose feet I can step on, though I am a little bit torn as to whether I should have signed up for the tribal dancing class instead. Is it cultural appropriation and politically incorrect to want to smear paint over myself or is it that I didn’t play in enough mud puddles as a child?

My third resolution was to throw a lunch or dinner party once a month. The month is now over, and my dinner party will have happened last night, if no catastrophes occurred.

I have watched my mother host scores of lunches and dinners, and lunches that became dinners, over the years. And while I’ve assisted with stirring the risotto, peeling potatoes and setting the table, I’m not sure how much I’ve actually absorbed. I know to try to spread the interesting people out around the table and to make sure that I’m in a position to jump up and help my mother clear the dishes.

My table only seats four, so if I invite a boring person, everyone is stuck with them. I thought I had a perfect mix, or possibly the worst mix of guests in the world: journalists and former journalists. Then, a week ago, two people pulled out. I felt like going on Tinder or Gumtree or even to a youth hostel and abducting a Brazilian backpacker who was looking for a free meal.

Luckily my cousin came through with a friend who was visiting from Perth, where she had apparently been fighting fires. My dinner would have a hero guest! Now I just needed a hero dish.

I rummaged through my cookbooks, from Robert Carrier to David Herbert, and scanned online recipes from Jamie Oliver and Nigella Lawson before turning to the woman who has never failed me: Delia Smith.

On second thoughts, I think I made a purple coq au vin from one of her recipes. But at least it wasn’t blue soup a la Bridget Jones.

I decided on chicken basque: a one-pot wonder. It would require me buying the perfect one pot, the one pot to rule them all. But I was confident I would reuse it sometimes.

Things were now on track: I had wine (left over from Christmas), a menu, guests and a deadline to clean the house.

Then more thoughts and worries entered my head (I blame television). Should I think of a dinner game? Should there be a theme? Should I spend hours practising folding napkins into swans?

In the end I decided against games and origami, and resolved to place my faith in refilling my guests’ glasses often. That and serving hors d’oeuvres in the form of cherry tomatoes marinated in vodka, sherry, Worcestershire and Tabasco.

Thank you, Delia.