Shane was cooking beans all day yesterday. He'd put them in to soak over the previous night and they had swelled up incredibly, over flowing out of the bowl. We were both amazed. So he placed them in a bigger bowl and covered them with water again and they increased in size again. How many beans did you say you wanted?
He went out late in the afternoon with his usual, I'm just going out for a while, which means he's going out to find boys, down the park, or to some beat some place and he left me in charge of stirring the pot.
He was back a few hours later. I asked him if he'd washed his hands and he laughed. I'm not sure if he was too confident in what he had created, as the next thing Sebastian arrived.
Sebastian cooked a Brussels sprout salad, a beetroot and orange salad, a capsicum salad (you know, when they turn to flesh), guacamole, a tomato salad and a green salad,. Then he prepared plates with a deconstructed corn chip and sour cream pile, for a modern interpretation of nachos.
Pretty soon after that, Mark W arrived with his washing and vodka. Sebastian and I were quite rude about Mark W's premixed vodka drinks, being traditionalist vodka and tonic drinkers. But then, we like to stir up Mark W whatever chance we get. He's intimidated easily for a big, strapping lad. He visibly shrinks at criticism. There aren't too many boys I know who are tall, dark and handsome and a sensitive petal all rolled into the one six foot two body. Call it a game, call it sport, call it bitchy, whatever. Besides, Mark W's way is clever combative repartee as humour, so he asks for it generally.
Mark W was given the job of lighting the fire, which he made a hash of, not a clue, which only gave us more ammunition. I made comments about his arse the whole time he was bent over with it in the air in a vane attempt to get the fire going. He dismissed my suggestions of help, as he added more and more newspaper. He abandoned the fire leaving it as smouldering coals, defeated. He said nothing when I broke up a few sticks and threw them on and had the fire roaring in no time. I refrained from making any comments about it.
Secretly, I've got a unspoken crush on Mark W and we flirt in a kind of non-flirting way, (not sexual, just to make him blush) like we're a little irritated with each other, but it's flirting. So, when he said that the personal stuff that I'd left on the kitchen bench was public property just by the simple fact I'd left it out for all to see, I came back quickly saying his dirty undies he'd left in the hallway waiting to be washed were fair game too, simply by the fact he'd left them strewn across the floor. He blushed and conceded.
Mark W made a big show of the desert he'd made, as the last desert he made for our previous dinner was a complete fizzer. He got a caning for that one. Lasts nights offering was continental ice cream with a brandy sauce. He looked sheepish when he messed up the brandy sauce, Sebastian tut tutted but we'd all drunk much vodka by that stage and were unusually forgiving.
Cooking for our dinner parties is not for the faint hearted. It's a good thing I can cook, Shane can too, he started his working life as a chef. Mark W tries, ah well, at least he's pretty to have around.
And we ate sumptuously, as we always do when Sebastian is around.
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