Skunky beer and bad food

We don't go to a lot of dinner parties or parties of any kind, truth be told. There are some places we love to go and there are some places we would avoid like the plague if it were possible.

One of our favorite outings is held every year by a good friend who gets together a mixed lot of guests, cooks jerk chicken and sides of all kinds. It's held in June in his backyard and eagerly anticipated by all who are lucky enough to be invited. His jerk is wicked good and although he gave me a list of ingredients, he doesn't measure things, and I have never quite duplicated the results he gets. Combine all that stuff, hot peppers, etc etc etc, dump all your chicken in a 5 gallon bucket, pour over the marinade. Cover and let set for 2 to 3 days in the fridge or somewhere cool. The morning of the feed, he removes the chicken from the marinade, drains it well and lets it dry. While the chicken is sitting to air dry, he strains the marinade, puts it in a canning kettle and cooks it down to use a mop. It's always great and he doesn't serve skunky beer with it!

Then there are those places that send chills up the spine of a prospective guest. It's unfortunate that so many of our relatives are bad cooks because you just can't avoid going to their places for meals. We've been tempted to get the greasy gravy overlords those funny looking strainer things with the spout on the bottom to get rid of the 2 inches of grease on the surface of the gravy. It's hard to resist putting out the grill before the chief whang leather chef turns those lovely porterhouse steaks into plastic, grey, dry and tasteless. That is if you manage to actually chew the stuff. The Thanksgiving feasts where we'd be very thankful indeed if we didn't have to eat that stuff and pretend like it tasted good. How many servings of runny mashed potatoes, over-sweet cranberry relish, dry turkey and greasy-crust pie can a person be expected to eat in one lifetime? Poker parties with mini-sausages stewing in a concoction of grape jelly and ketchup? Mercy... Cheese dips made with a whole log of processed American cheese and a couple of cans of condensed chicken gumbo soup? Darned stuff looks like dog barf and smells even worse. There have also been regrettable instances of not knowing quite what that stuff on the plate is. This is disconcerting, at best, because the person serving it is obviously quite proud of their creation and is expecting raves and requests for the recipe. If someone is foolhardy enough to request the recipe the response is likely to be: "Ah, I didn't use a recipe," chef will exclaim gaily, with a wave of the hand, "I just tossed a few things in the slow cooker." As the kid says, "fo' shizzle." The issue of skunky beer is another one of those seemingly unavoidable things. Beer in clear glass bottles that has been chilled, warmed thoroughly then rechilled? Oh, save me, please. If a guest doesn't wish to offend the host, what is the proper way to handle the stuff? Drink it gingerly? Say "thank you" but my (ulcer, head cold, sinus infection, abscessed tooth, insert your own malady) is acting up and I must abstain. If it's obvious there is nothing whatsoever wrong with a guest, I suggest watching closely for an opportunity to either pour some down a drain on a trip to the bathroom or get rid of it by pouring it into a potted plant. Of course, there is always the real possibility that the host with gleefully present you with more of the vile brew.

Having grown up in the 60s, I have some really awful food memories, many of which involve gelatin of some sort. Orange gelatin with sliced pimento-stuffed olives? Looks like eyeballs staring up at you from the bed of iceberg lettuce. Green gelatin with shredded carrots. Green gelatin with cottage cheese, for cryin' out loud! Strangely constructed dishes whose main ingredient seemed to be pork and bean and weiners. Spaghetti cooked in tomato sauce with absolutely no seasoning but salt? Then there are artificial whipped toppings. That stuff should be on the EPA's hazardous substance list. A generation raised on what is basically artificially flavored whipped shortening might appreciate the flavor and texture of real whipped cream but it's as likely they won't. (Heavy cream isn't cheap, true, so go out and collect cans or something and just try the real thing. Please?)

When we have a opportunity to go dine somewhere, without being required to bring food, and have a good meal with a decent beverage, we consider ourselves truly blessed. Shame it doesn't happen more often.