Guestward Ho! (17 page)

Bill had seen the list, assumed it was complete, and had
driven off to Santa Fe to do the buying. For the rest of
the week we had to depend on whim, ingenuity, the pantry
shelf, and prayer, and it worked out
much
better, giving that heretofore deadly meal a kind of impromptu in
ventiveness it had never had previously. It was quite ex
citing for a while. Every morning when Bill woke up I'd
say, "What would you like for lunch today?"

"I don't care," was the inevitable answer.

"Oh, come on. What would you
really
like?"

"Surprise me," he'd say, rolling over for a brief nap.

He was a great help! But even the impromptu lunches boiled down to a sort of elastic formula. And I still keep thinking of them in terms of gallons. There were two gallons of soup (we mostly made all the soup ourselves, and
there was a perpetual stock pot simmering on the back
of the stove), one gallon of iced tea, one gallon of coffee
and one gallon of milk, plus a heroic salad, dessert, and
whatever else happened to pop into my mind.

One day when the house was filled with a wildly assorted
variety of people, I was feeling particularly stumped on
the lunch problem when the man of my choice came up
with one of his rare brilliant ideas.

"Listen, Barbara," Bill said, "instead of having to worry
about feeding them all here in the dining room this noon, why don't we split the whole party up? Dick or
Don can take an all-day ride out, all those eager moun
tain climbers can go climb a mountain, and I'll take a car
load out to see the local color. That way you won't have to plan any lunch at all."

"That's just wonderful, Bill," I said, planting a wet kiss
on his cheek.

The whole problem was solved. I went straight to the
chaise longue with The Girls and looked forward to a
blissful sun-kissed nap until the cook routed me out of my
fool's paradise with a thud.

"Hey, Miss Barbara," he-said, "you gotta help me. We
got three diffrunt trips goin' outta here today an' the
lunches ain't ready. In fact, they ain't even planned. What
am I gonna feed all those people?"

There went my day. Instead of planning
one
lunch, I
ended up planning four—one for the riders, one for the drivers, one for the walkers, and one for the staff left back
at the ranch! And on top of having to plan them, they all
had to be prepared hours earlier than usual. They had to
be meals that weren't perishable and were portable. They
all had to be wrapped and packed and accompanied by
such essentials as silver and napkins and salt and matches.
When the clunk of the last vacuum jug faded off in the distance, I sagged back onto the chaise with just enough
strength left to read a magazine article about a new kind
of pill, no larger than an aspirin tablet, embodying the
equivalent of a turkey dinner. Whenever it comes onto the market, believe me, I'm going to stock up.

Speaking of luncheons, Bill and I once gave one that
was epic.

I've spoken about our competition around Santa Fe and
said how lovely and helpful and non-cutthroaty everyone
was, but I don't think I've mentioned that all of the ranch
and hotel owners were also organized into a sort of loose-knit brotherhood known as the Northern New Mexico Resort Association. The exact function of this august body
eludes me at the moment, except that its members, in
addition to socializing and being awfully pleasant and nice,
share the common aim of trying to promote New Mexico
generally and Santa Fe specifically, as the ideal place to
spend a vacation—which, of course,
it is.
(N.N.M.R.Ass'n
please note plug.) Anyhow, the biggest function of the
Resort Association is the annual Roundup.

What it actually amounts to is a long weekend party
for travel editors, feature writers, fashion people, travel
agents, and so on. The Resort Association is joined by
the Chamber of Commerce the
New Mexican,
a couple of
railroads and airlines, the Santa Fe Designers' group, and just about any other organization that wants to do a little low-pressure selling of Santa Fe. The guests are put up at
the various member ranches and exposed to a dizzying
succession of parties and rides and trips beginning on Thursday and culminating at a bang-up dinner dance at
Hotel La Fonda on Sunday. Everybody gets him or her self dolled up as Western as possible, each of the Santa
Fe designers changes from one dazzling fiesta dress to a
still more dazzling fiesta dress every hour on the hour, and
a good time is had by all in the name of sweet publicity.
I don't know if it does any good, but it's fun.

During our first season Rancho del Monte was elected to provide a luncheon for the visiting potentates and Bill
and I looked upon it as something of a challenge. Chal
lenge? It was a downright
threat.

"Listen," Bill said, "we've really got to shine at this lunch-party deal. We'll not only have all the rival resort
owners looking us over, but there'll be the travel people
from all over the country giving us the eye. I know we're
new at this, but we can't appear too raw."

"Well, I'll try," I said, "but when it comes to being raw, I don't care what you say. I
feel
like a tartar steak and I'm sure I look it."

"Now, one thing we can do," Bill went on, "is to have
something original to eat. Since ninety buffet tables out
of every hundred have a roast beef, a ham, a turkey, po
tato salad, and stuffed eggs, we won't have any of those
things. I think they'll welcome the change."

Any talk about a party always cheers me up—even if
I'm the one who has to give the party. "That's so true, Bill," I said. "There are simply dozens of good dishes
people never think of for a buffet party. We can do something
really
original and knock 'em dead. In fact, we might
just reverse everything."

"How do you mean?" Bill asked suspiciously.

"Well, nothing like dessert first and soup last," T said.
"But we could just switch some of the standard things.
For instance, you know how every luncheon begins with
cocktails out on the terrace and then the meal indoors. Well, why don't we do it the other way around? Drinks
inside and the eating outside so we can show off the new
terrace furniture."

"Hmmm, yes," Bill said. "And instead of a lot of slices
of cold meat, maybe a really monumental aspic of some
sort . . ."

"You worry about the food for a change," I said en
thusiastically, "and just leave the arrangements to me. We'll give them a luncheon they'll never forget."

We did.

The day of the party dawned fair and cloudless arid
perfectly beautiful. The refrigerators, the freezer, and every
available surface in the kitchen were crammed with the
most succulent and original goodies imaginable. The
house and grounds were spotless and my real linen trousseau guest towels were on display in the bathrooms. Hav
ing the whole morning ahead of me with nothing to do, I decided to set up the luncheon tables bright and early
and then take a little sunbath so I'd look my healthy best
for the Rounduppers.

Instead of using the ranch stuff, I'd dug out all of my
own linen and china and goblets and my Cartier silver
for as far as it would stretch. By ten o'clock the whole
terrace was arranged into a dozen stylish tables for four,
glinting with crystal and real silver and every one different
from the others. I suppose it looked kind of minty, but I
was much younger then and I thought it was perfectly
beautiful. So, having nothing better to do, the little ex
terior decorator gathered up The Girls and made for the
chaise longue and a two-hour session of sun worshiping.

By eleven it occurred to me that it was uncomfortably warm in the sunshine—blistering
hot
as a matter of fact—
but I rolled over gamely and gave my back a good toast
ing. At twelve I was feeling a little giddy from the heat,
but by then it was time to bathe and dress for the lunch
eon. On the way past the terrace I looked rapturously
once again at my handiwork—at the ladylike little tables with their cargo of family treasures glittering in the sun
shine.

"Razzamatazz," I said to Bill, "they'll really flip when
they see this."

The Rounduppers began piling in at one. Quite a lot
of them said, "Hot enough for you?" and "It sure is a
scorcher!" and "June is the only really hot month in New
Mexico." But I was too busy being Little Miss Charm her
self to pay much attention. The party was going well and
the big dim lounge was filled with so much laughter and
chatter that I began to relax.

At two I ordered the food to be put outside on the long
buffet table and then I tried to interest the Rounduppers
in a little serious eating, but they were all having such a
good time indoors that getting them to the buffet table took half an hour. Finally they were ready and we all trooped out toward the terrace.

Feeling perfectly self-assured, I flung open the door like a mayor unveiling an Epstein statue and gestured grandly
toward the buffet. It was a perfect shambles. The mam
moth aspic had melted down to the size of a small and
rather wizened football. It had broken the dam, so to speak, overflowing the edges of the platter, carrying in its wake nasty parched bits of watercress as it coursed gooily across the damask tablecloth. The jellied consommé, now the color and consistency of high-grade
motor oil, sloshed and splashed around in the soup cups.
The lobster salad—made of lobsters specially flown from Maine—was a temperature ideal for Newburg, its accom
panying bowl of mayonnaise piping hot and rancid in the
midday sun. Oh, it was a scrumptious-looking spread!

Still, some of the gamer Rounduppers were willing to
assault their palates with our original food and then pan
demonium broke loose. After four or five hours in the
blazing sun, the silver was too hot to touch without welders' gloves and the crash and clatter of knives and forks was deafening. And as for the crystal-stemmed glasses! They were so hot from sitting in the sunshine
that five of them burst the minute ice water was poured
into them.

I was too stunned to do anything but gape at the fiasco of my chi-chi lunch party. Happily, Bill dashed to the
kitchen and got sufficient leftovers from the icebox to go
around. There were parts of a cold turkey, a cold roast
beef, and a cold canned ham—just like every other buffet. Looking dismally at our guests broiling in the sun, mop
ping their brows, loosening their ties, and covering their
heads with newspapers and wet napkins, I began mentally
wording a polite letter of resignation from the Resort As
sociation. It seemed politic for Bill and me to resign
voluntarily before we were thrown out. But somehow no
body really seemed to mind. The following fall Bill was elected Secretary-Treasurer of the Resort Association—
i
n absentia,
needless to say—and the Rounduppers came
back the next year, but only for cocktails,
not
for an original lunch.

Still and all, even
if I do
say so myself, the Rancho del
Monte food was good. The way you could tell was by
toting up the requests for seconds and by eyeing the empty
plates as they were being carried out. Quite frankly, I preferred the more exotic diet of the ranch when it was empty or when there were only a few guests who were
willing to go along on experiments. But even when the
place was thronged and we were serving the pure
cuisine Americaine,
the food was always good and always nonin
stitutional. It was, homey food rather than hotel-y food, and
that was all to the good. And while the Wine and Food Society has not beaten a path to the door of Rancho del
Monte, most of our guests departed a good many pounds
heavier, moaning and groaning about the reducing they,
were going to do when they got home.

Although I was cursed with my cooks, I was blessed
with my husband. I am honestly
not
a good cook. I can
get around the kitchen and follow recipes and instructions
with a certain amount of animal intelligence, but not much
more. When Bill married me, I couldn't even do that. He
taught me everything I know about cooking, but certainly
not everything
he
knows. Since no important crisis ever
occurred at Rancho del Monte without a cook's leaving,
Bill and I had to pitch in at the stove a lot of the time. But Bill did most of the pitching. He has the creativity and intuition for food that all good cooks must have.
When something perfectly dreadful happens to a dish in
mid-cooking, Bill can always improvise and add something
or change something so that the finished product, though
different, is even better and far more thrilling than what
he started with. I can peel potatoes—one per person in residence—till the cows come home. I can give an assist
with the salad or the dessert or whip up the salad dressing,
and even make jams and jellies, but when it comes to real
cookery, Bill is the master. And even if we had had a
dozen jolly, cooperative, fun-loving master chefs in the
kitchen, Bill would never have allowed one of them to
make the gravy. A country boy, Bill had to have his gravy,
and he made it beautifully: rich and full-bodied and never
a lump. I can and will cook, but I hate a mental bloc about it in the face of such competition, and I'm a nervous wreck by the time the meal is on the table. I am
not and never will be the cook my husband is, and that's
all there is to it. Full house or empty house, Bill was the
mainstay of the kitchen, just as he was the mainstay of the rest of the place.