Dinner Parties in New York

In general, most New Yorkers tend socialize at restaurants for the simple fact that most people do not have apartments large enough to have more than 4 people over at once or even the space to have a dining table.  Occasionally, a friend will have a rooftop on which a dinner party can be held, but more often these gatherings involve cramming your best friends on your couch or whatever other creative seating you happen to have (desk chairs, end tables etc.) and everyone eating awkwardly with plates in their laps.  Nonetheless, Stamps was up for the challenge as she actually has an apartment with a dining table!  She invited me, Guiness and Soju for a last minute dinner party Thursday night, having acquired $20 worth of organic produce from a group of hippies that truck it in daily from a farm in Vermont (I'm sure it's more legit than it sounds).  I was running late having gone to the gym when I received a desperate text from Stamps:

"Hate 2 b a pain but cd really use a small bag of ice & gallon of water."

I grabbed a bottle of wine from my stockpile for Stamps, stopped at the store around the corner for the ice and water and after waiting anxiously for 15 minutes with heavy grocery bags in hand, grabbed a cab to the West Village.  When I arrived, Guinness and Soju were standing in the entrance keeping Stamps company as she finished preparing our feast in a kitchen that measures approximately 2 X 2 feet.  The only way we could assist our host, as clearly none of us were fitting into the kitchen with her, was to get the bottle of wine into an ice bucket.  Our first course:

Tomato and mozzarella salad with basil.  Always a crowd pleaser.  Me, Guinness and Soju perched around the table and munched happily, while Stamps continued to cook.  For our main course:

A delicious vegetable medley of green peppers, yellow summer squash and cherry tomatoes.  I ate the veggies along with some ricotta-filled ravioli topped a with fresh tomato sauce (there were also some "spongy" - as described by Stamps - turkey meatballs, which I did not partake in):

And a goat cheese and sun dried tomato tart with a flakey phyllo crust (an experiment by Stamps) :

While we ate, the soundtrack to our meal was a mix of gypsy kings-like instrumentals, some bands unknown to me of British/Irish origin and Lady Gaga.  As "Alejandro" played I commented that this is currently my dad's favorite song to which Guiness said "My dad used to like Bananarama."  I looked at Soju to see if she had any clue who Bananarama is since she would have been an infant at the height of their popularity, while Stamps and I being children of the 80's would have been in our pre-teen, acid washed jeans and tied-up oversized t-shirt phase.  Guinness on the other hand would have been heading to college.  Stamps broke into dignified, mock Irish-accented version of "Cruel Summer"and Guinness attempted to recall additional songs by the band and referred to some "penis" song that was popular.  Huh?  Maybe Bananarama released a racy, special edition for the Irish market?  We eventually figured out he meant the song the song "Venus".  She's got it, yeah baby she's got it....

For the last course:

Prosciutto with melon and.....

Yummy peaches!  We left shortly after the last course as it was a school night.  The West Village was rocking with a gross, chubby couple pawing at each other against Stamps's building (I think they were making out, but he could've been suffocating her) and hoards of kids noisily running around tipsy.  While drunk nights on the town are fun, a chill evening with good food, conversation and friends is much more my speed these days.  And if there's a table, other than a coffee table, to eat at - well that's just a bonus!