about our first dinner party

Back story: During last week’s orientation, Billy volunteered at the Iowa City Ronald McDonald House with ten other first years, among them a Mr. Rob, GW-graduate with an art-history-major girlfriend, Jill. Our first Iowa kindred spirits! We had drinks on the town (Pedestrian Mall) on Saturday night, and herewith follows a list of Why We Like:

1. They both studied abroad, she in Florence and he in Barcelona and Freiburg, Germany. We are a happy pack of Europhiles.
2. Jill likes fruity cocktails (blood orange martini!), as well as gin and tonics, wine, and sort of beer. Twin.
   
3. We moaned in unison over how snobby it was to order a carafe of pomegranate margaritas. A carafe! Couldn’t it come in a bucket, or a trough?
   
4. We all feel overdressed for day shopping at Sears (acceptable for appliance shopping), though not as much as the freshman we passed on the walk back to the car, who was dazzling in a dress constructed entirely of red and black duct tape.
   
5. “I don’t want to sound elitist, but…” “No, say it!” Ahh. East coast city college friends!

SO, on Sunday Billo and I saw The Hurt Locker, a super great, tightly-wound movie about bomb techs in Iraq, filmed on location by a woman director. We visited the library. We invited the GWs to our house. And we threw our first Iowa dinner party.

We skewered and grilled zucchini, bell peppers, and lime shrimp (a lovely amalgam of dad’s broiled-shrimp stand by, with lime to match the margarita flavors. Thus, lime juice and zest, tons of garlic, salt, pepper, oregano, parsley). Then some button mushrooms sauteed in red wine, Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper etc. So delicious, though we didn’t realize the shrimp would grill to pink in .5 seconds (oops; next time). For dessert, I halved four peaches and loaded their insides with butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon before broiling them for five minutes, finishing them on the grill, and sandwiching them around a ball of chocolate ice cream (gelato would have been even better) .

We knew we had struck gold with our new friends when they showed up with three bottles of wine — two whites from Spain and Germany (a Cava and a Zin?) and a California mixed-blend grape. Yes! Wine people!

It even included the boys getting on tangents about judicial activism and other appropriate law school shop talk, which will surely become even more  par for the course. Four hours after they arrived, we all ended up sleepy and very full, with assurances of a dinner at their house later in the week.

I know, no pictures. Awful. Next time!