Hog wild?

A column from Dec. 14, 1997:

Entertaining isn’t very entertaining. At least for me.

Part of the problem lies outside the kitchen. Guests seem to be oddly unsettled by a couch covered with cat fur, and while old hairballs hiding under coffee tables are old hat for me, they make some people squeamish, I’m told. And it’s useful to have a clear path around the books and newspapers through which visitors can walk without fear.

A greater problem in entertaining is psychic. I want to be perfect, and I want everybody to love me and admire me and maybe work me into their family legends. In the next millennium, let me be remembered as a demigoddess of bounty. “Yes, children, this meal almost recaptures the Feast of ‘93, when Alison worked magic with mushrooms and artichokes and lifted us from the yawning depths of mealtime despair.” Later, I’ll turn into a beauteous, albeit middle-aged, genie of the kitchen whose magical concoctions, once upon a time, imparted eternal joy and lengthy youth to lucky wanderers. In my dreams.

Fear of failure invites failure. And the most certain path to a failed feast is overdoing. Of course, I lose all sense of proportion. There’s nothing fun about proportion, and excess is always preferable to deficiency, at least where good things are involved. But I can be so frantic to please that I push more and more dishes onto the table, just so there’s more than enough for everybody, and if one thing doesn’t suit a particular palate, another thing will. Don’t like olive paste? Try these spiced nuts! We have them plain, too. Or this English cheese. And here’s one from Germany. Have you had any of my mushroom pâté? On a diet? How ‘bout these crunchy, negative-cal crudités? Let me bring out the yogurt dip. In short, I whip up a recipe for driving guests to an early exit.

Too much food is fine, of course, at a big party, if the cook can hold back his or her natural tendency to foist and to hover. But at a small party, you don’t want guests’ eyes to get wild and fearful as dish after dish piles up on the groaning board.

Years and years ago the spouse and I had over a single guest, a very intense, very jumpy young man who was a year behind me in grad school. I didn’t know what to make, so I made several things I knew, almost all heavy and laden with cheese. There was quiche and eggplant parmigiana and pinto cornbread covered with cheese and an elaborate salad, full of just about everything I could stuff in. I can’t remember what I made for dessert, for we never got that far. Poor Jim, who was a meat-and-potatoes guy, took a very few bites. He muttered, over and over, “Too good; too rich,” and then hightailed it out of there. I kid you not: He really ran, all the way to the library!

A little psychology and strategy could have saved a lot of overdoing. But what the heck? The spouse and I ate happily for days on the leftovers. And the apartment was tidy for several hours.

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In the ‘90s, I’ve seen a lot of cookbook writers try to make up for their perceived gaffes in the two decades before. Revisions slash the fat and shun the dairy, ironically even as we learn that good fat is essential, butter isn’t the villain it was long thought to be, and eggs and cheese may be really good for us. When one of my favorite cookbooks, Mollie Katzen’s “The Enchanted Broccoli Forest” from 1982, resurfaced in a revision in 1995, I immediately checked its index to see whether my favorite recipe from the tome, one I have made over and over and over to high praise, had undergone any serious revision. The darn recipe had been dumped!

Here it is. I often halve it for small parties, and I’ve usually used cottage cheese instead of ricotta (blended or processed with the mushroom mixture) because I’m cheap and that’s what I’ve had around. Maybe the results would be even better if I behaved.

MUSHROOM & CHEESE PATE (1982)
4 tablespoons butter
1 pound mushrooms, coarsely chopped
3 cups chopped onions
1/2 teaspoon salt (more to taste)
1 teaspoon dry mustard (go for Coleman’s)
1/2 teaspoon dill
black pepper, to taste
cayenne, to taste
3 tablespoons dry white wine or dry vermouth or water with a splash of vinegar
1/4 cup wheat germ
8 ounces (1 cup) Neufchatel or cream cheese
1 pound (2 cups) ricotta cheese
For garnish:
paprika and freshly minced parsley

1. In a large, heavy skillet begin cooking the onions in butter over medium heat, stirring occasionally.
2. After about 5 minutes, when onions are soft, add mushrooms, salt, dry mustard, dill, black pepper and cayenne. Stir well and cook uncovered over moderate heat, stirring intermittently, for another 5 minutes.
3. Add wine, vermouth or water plus vinegar, and stir. Continue to cook for 5 more minutes.
4. Sprinkle in the wheat germ, stirring as you sprinkle. Stir and cook 1–2 minutes more, then remove from heat.
5. Cut the Neufchatel or cream cheese into the hot mixture.
6. Use a blender or food processor fitted with a steel blade to puree the mixture. Transfer puree to a large mixing bowl. Whisk in the ricotta.
7. You can bake the pate in a buttered deep-dish casserole or in two medium loaf pans. If baked in a casserole, you can serve as a spread, especially for crackers. If baked in loaves, which is what I always do, it will be sliceable and spreadable, also good with crackers and bread. (When you use loaf pans, oil them or spray them, and line with buttered waxed paper.)
8. Bake in a 400-degree F oven for 1-1/4 hours or more. (At the minimum time, the pate will look very liquid. I’ve found that it will set up nicely and be light and pleasing; on the other hand, I like the more intense flavor when I cook it for 15 minutes or more longer.) Cool on a rack and chill for several hours or overnight. When you use loaf pans, dump the chilled critters onto nice plates and peel off the paper.