(With Apologies) Frailty, Thy Name Is Woman

Yes, I know that by "frailty", the Bard meant "fickleness", but I'm feeling rather puny and frustrated right now, as I'm running a fever of 100.8, so I've allowed myself some creative quoting.

There was a fabulous local tapas restaurant that served killer mojitos, which I recently found out had closed, and which led me to an obsession: to have a dinner party inspired by tapas. This would mean that instead of a few courses with multiple coordinated accompaniments, I'd orchestrate a procession of bites, each complimenting the previous, so that for example crunchy would follow creamy, sharp would follow mellow and so on.

I spent a goodly amount of time scouring my books and my favourite recipe site for exquisite inspirations, and I found them. We would start with a fig and olive tapenade with goat cheese, and end with anise-scented chocolate mousse with cardamom-infused creme anglaise, with about eight other morsels in between, such as buckwheat blinis with smoked salmon and creme fraiche, cucumber-sesame salad, and chestnut-fennel soup. 

What kept me up at night was the orchestration of actual plates: my dinner service is for twelve, but I was expecting seven guests (yeah, I know, even numbers are better, but surprisingly, there were those who had Other Plans, the nerve), but I do have an extraneous Shelley (same shape, different pattern) tea service and one or two little oddities which would probably avoid the need for too much dish-washing between courses.

Except for the 100.8 degree fever.

No matter how maniacal my attention to meticulous hand-washing, my guests all agreed that they'd be more comfortable not eating food prepared by a sickie.

I'm feeling rather frail and frustrated.