Little rocking horses from the baby shower cake.

I was late, every street in Madison is dug up right now, the weather was bad, and the traffic was really heavy – I was creeping around on side streets to avoid the congestion at major intersections that are full of orange barrels, workers, sewer pipes, and big holes in the ground. I got a few blocks into the drive, and realized I had forgotten the chips – and the menu kind of revolved around chips & dip – so I had to go back for them. When we were planning, I asked what the mom-to-be was craving and the word was potato chips and meat. So the menu was:

Asian flavors marinated beef lettuce wraps – sirloin steak strips on wooden skewers, served with lettuce leaves and  a couple of dipping sauces – I used this Korean beef recipe from the NYT, but I did not put the Asian pear in the marinade; and I made this peanut sauce from Gourmet that was utterly delicious

Gourmet potato chips with several dips -  caramelized onion dip (a la 101 Cookbooks, but I don’t save out the onions for topping, I just mix them all in), dill dip -

Lots of  veggies to go with the dips: carrots, Romano green beans & broccoli, lightly blanched, cauliflower, cherry tomatoes, and peppers

Warm pita wedges, grilled on my Mario Batalli paninni press – with sets of toppings:  Cafe Flora curried  lentil spread, & chutney – that was the last of some homemade apricot chutney mixed into Patak’s sweet mango – the ladies loved the ginger sauce; and tomato bruschetta topping – good farmers market tomatoes with basil from the back porch, garlic, Balsamic & olive oil, with Trader Joe’s olivada, too

Potato salad with celery from my CSA box, and egg, and radishes sliced on top for garnish

Chunks of cantaloupe and watermelon

Iced tea/juice blends  (black tea-lemonade & berry-white grape)

When I finally got there, they’d been let in, and good caring professions workers that they all are, were adaptable and ready to help. We got the tablecloths under the decorations they’d brought & laid out on the tables, and I had them help me set out plates and glasses and napkins, and make water pitchers, so I could dump dips & chips into bowls and broil the beef and cut the fruit and ice the tea.

They’d come prepared with some good ice breakers like making everyone cut a piece of string they thought would fit around mom-to-be’s belly – with prizes for the best guess. Pretty soon they were all laughing so hard I could barely hear the hurricane sirens going off. I had to go upstairs to consult with my renter’s boyfriend who had a computer on, to see if we should head for the basement – we decided we’d be OK above ground.

While I was cleaning up, John texted me the picture of the Escalade going into a sinkhole in Milwaukee – they got hit harder than us – but I still had to sop up water in the basement when I got home. I tried using mom’s old wet & dry shop vac, and it worked pretty well – the biggest downside is that it’s old and dirty, so once the water goes through the filter to the inside, it’s filthy. I think I’ll get a new filter for it tomorrow – seems a good Saturday kind of thing to do.

After drying the basement up, time to change the sheets on my bed, so Eric, our friend in from Notre Dame to give a talk at WiLSWorld, who couldn’t fly out in all the weather, could sleep in it. No time to have a glass of white wine and some stinky cheese and remember mom – the airlines got Eric on a flight leaving at 5:30 Friday morning, so he couldn’t stay up and toast her with me. I ended up having a glass f red, but too close to bedtime for me, too, and I felt it in the a.m.

It was funny, or ironic, or something,  to be around the Hospice workers when mom died on the same day 6 years ago under their care – but I think these were all paid types, and the woman who was with us that morning was a volunteer – she wasn’t in attendance at the shower, anyhow.

Today I stopped by the house, and there are still bedraggled pink baby shower bows tied to the front banisters – it was raining too hard to take them off last night, and no one’s got around to it yet today.

Esacalde in a sinkhole in Milwaukee