The Miracle of the 'Mad Men' Dinner

Last night was my weekly 'Mad Men' dinner. 

It's a v. appropriate name for a dinner that I might host. Not that I'm taking any cheap shots at anybody or anything.

Some of you may wonder what constitutes a  'Mad Men Dinner'.  You may have imagined a whole lot of crazy middleaged guys Behaving Badly whilst we raucous women throw rotten tomatoes at them. 

Sadly, that's not it.

 It's a cable TV show convincingly set in a Madison Ave Advertising agency in the early sixties. There's a large cast of characters & many of them are Rather Mad Men who behave appallingly whilst smoking cigarettes from every orifice. You could get lung cancer just from watching the show.

Luckily for me, none of my local pals have Cable. But I do. So I'm Suddenly Popular.

Look at the picture above will you. Tyler, my wonderful stepson again joined us for dinner. As you can see, he's a little in awe of the intense light just above the statue of  Our Lady With No Hands. In fact, we were all a little amazed.

Was this the precursor to a Vision, like Fatima or Lourdes, perhaps? 

I have always been terrified but also fascinated by these Earthly visions ever since I was originally told about them by Hateful Sister Rosalia in Kindergarten. She told us five year olds that Our Lady had visited these three stupid peasant kids in Fatima in about 1917 & told them three secrets that they could only tell to the local priest who would then pass them  on to The Pope. Over the years, the first two secrets were revealed. I can only vaguely remember one of them, which was that Evil Communism was threatening to take over the world & kill us all. And all because the world didn't go to Mass on sundays enough.

 That scared the living daylights out of me. 

But the thing that made me totally unable to sleep with the light off was that Only the Pope knew the contents of the Third Secret. And he wasn't going to tell.

Instantly, I knew what it was. 

Now, you may think that a five year old wouldn't know such things. But I was an Old Soul, as they say. I'd been around before. I knew that the Third Secret was about the World ending by perhaps one of those large bombs that I'd heard about. I sat at my little desk a complete mess.

And I hated that Mary for coming & smarmily telling hideous secrets, all the while looking like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. What was the point? Did she really think that the whole world was suddenly going to drop everything & race off to Mass every Sunday just because she tells little peasant kiddies that ? I don't think so.

So, it was with some surprise & relief that when the contents of the Third Secret finally came out in the nineties, it was a Complete Fizzer. The Vatican revealed that it told of the Pope's assassination attempt in the early eighties. Yawn. But what a relief all the same. All those years of mindless worrying for nothing. Maybe I wasn't born an Old Soul after all. 

Just a Worried One.

And now for The Food.

 Each week, everyone brings something with a Slightly Sixties feel to it. My parents favourite hors d'oevre (bad spelling) was Angels on Horseback, which were smoked oysters with bacon wrapped around them. And then there were tinned prunes again wrapped in bacon. It was amazing how versatile bacon was back then.

So far, I haven't served up any of these delicacies. But I might soon.

Last night I made Potatoes au Gratin which became a firm favourite of mine in I believe, the late sixties. I'm proudly showing it off, below, along with my bare arms that I usually cover. What a risk taker!

The potato dish was served with a Brave Meatloaf that Jenny made. 

The Grand Finale was Traditional Trifle made by Monica.  Jenny is looking on as if she's never seen anyone use whipped cream in a can before. What a sheltered life.

Because I have v. strict dietary rules, like no carbs after lunch & hardly no wine, I find these weekly feasts a magnificent treat. I let everything slide & shovel in as much as I like & even have a couple of glasses of wine. 

Mad Men, Carbs & Wine. What more could I want?