Stressful Preparation for Easter Sunday

It all started when my wife decided to invite a friend for lunch on Easter Sunday. A close and dear friend who will be moving down to Miami at the end of the month.  Since she considered the lunch event one of the many farewell gatherings to come, she wanted everything to be perfect. Therefore, the preparations started on Saturday afternoon with a visit to the grocery store to buy all the necessary ingredients to put together the feast. As she usually does for such events, she concocted a complex menu consisting of salad, bread, stuffed pork loin, rice, and the piece de resistance: a walnut chocolate tart for dessert. She decided to bake the tart the night before since the lunch was scheduled for 1:00PM on Sunday.

The delicious crumble upside down chocolate walnut tart!

I was diligently working on my thesis when all of a sudden my wife screamed in horror: “Oh My God! What am I going to do now?” After composing myself from the scare, I made it to the kitchen and discovered the reason for her dismay. Right there, lying on top of the stove, was the tart…she had incidentally dropped it face down. She immediately asked: “Can we save it?” Immediately I spurred into action and claiming that most likely we could, I placed a spatula right under it, a plate on top of it, and with a quick turn, I turned the tart into the plate. Her eyes widened, my jaw dropped and as I look at the mess, I had just created in the plate I could only say: “Voila! Now we have a crumble upside down chocolate walnut tart.” Unfortunately, she had run out of ingredients so baking another tart was out of the question. I did console her by assuring her the tart smelled amazing and that our guest wouldn’t mind how it looked.

The next morning, Easter Sunday, my wife woke up early and decided to redeem herself by putting all her effort into the stuffed roasted pork loin. She called me around 11:30AM to look at the finished main dish and I was amazed at how appetizing it looked. As I admired the great color and the aromas emanating from it, somehow my mouth and my foot connected again (as they usually do), and from somewhere in my subconscious I asked: “How did you season it?” My wife turned, and with her eyes wide open, she smacked her forehead with her right hand and yelled: “I forgot to season it!!” After consoling it telling her it would be fine, she decided to prepare gravy for the pork loin. Now it was close to noon so she went for a quick shower while I work on the rice.

Around 12:15PM, she came back into the kitchen with a plan: “Okay, since we still have around 45 minutes, you should shower while I prepare the salad and cleanup the mess in the kitchen. I can put on my makeup later since we still have plenty of time.” I agreed and made my way up the stairs when a noise made us come to a halt: “DING, DONG!” This is not happening I told my wife, when we heard it again: “DING, DONG!” It was the doorbell, and as my wife approached the front door, we confirmed our worst fear; our guest had arrived 45 minutes earlier.

Realizing there was nothing else to do, we welcomed our guest into the mess. We continued cooking lunch  in the kitchen with our friend as we shared all the events that led up to that moment when he rang the doorbell. During lunch, we had fun retelling stories around similar chaotic experiences we all had during family dinners or events. As my wife and our friend were laughing and having a good time, I realized that as it usually happens, worrying too much about the little things made us lose track of what was important for us this Easter Sunday. This lunch wasn’t about the tart, or the pork loin…it really was about having a good time with a dear friend who very soon we will not have the pleasure to see as often as we use to. So next time you are totally stressed out, you better make sure you are not missing out on something great due to focusing on minor things. In case you are wondering, the tart really was delicious.