Hors d’oeuvres, Anyone?

Location of cocktail party: KB Home Design Studio
Theme: French street carnival
Entertainment: Juggler, mime, magician, two caricaturists, and live saxophone music!
Food served: French cheese platters, quiche, escargots in puff pastry, salade nicoise,
pain au chocolat and croissants amandine (a.k.a. chocolate and almond croissants), and my favorite: a dessert crepe station with a chef!
Beverages: A variety of French wines
I drank: 1.5 glasses of Merlot

I have to admit, I mostly went to this party because I’m a huge fan of French cuisine, as well as having errands to run in that part of town. But this really was a fun and well-planned party. And I was rewarded by attending, because the sous-chef at the crepe station gave me some cooking tips!

As soon as I came in, though, I was mobbed by loan officers. Since the real estate market’s slowed down, these same people who wouldn’t return my calls last year are all over me to refer my clients to them. I can’t speak for other Realtors, but for me, the idea of using a loan officer without getting referred by an agent who has used them in multiple past (successful) transactions is just not going to happen. There is way too much that can go wrong with financing to entrust a loan to a complete stranger with no personal references. So while I was nice to them, of course I threw away all their business cards after the event.

I made my way to a buffet table, saw a man who was actively looking for a ham-free quiche, located one, and said to him, “I don’t know if it’s kosher, but that one definitely doesn’t have ham.” He didn’t respond, so maybe he had no idea what I was talking about. Or maybe he was Muslim. Who knows?

Another man, who was probably in his sixties and mostly spoke Spanish, took the escargots in puff pastry. I asked him if he liked that, and he said, “Si, delicioso!” to which I replied, “You do know what that is, don’t you?” He didn’t. I feel that if you’re going to eat snails, you at least have the right to be aware of it, so I tried to find out how to say escargot in Spanish to help the guy.

As the saying goes, "no good deed goes unpunished." So for the rest of the evening, I had to dodge Mr. Escargot. He kept finding me to ask if I’d like to get a glass of wine with him, would I translate something for him, what have you. No thanks, I’m not interested! Move along!

I eventually found safe haven with two female Realtors who were enjoying the live saxophone music. Like me, one of them was also evading a persistent man, so I was in good company. After chatting for a bit about the market and about the alarming number of pushy loan officers at the party, I decided that the coast was clear enough to head over to the crepe station.

Mmm, the crepe station... That made-to-order blueberry crepe topped with whipped cream was so delicious that I kept eating it even while having my caricature drawn by an artist! I could not put that crepe down! I even went back for seconds— embarrassed, but apparently not enough to avoid a second foray into the crepes. (BTW, I'm trying to figure out how to put my scanned caricature into jpg format, so that I can use it on my profile. If anyone has suggestions, please pass them along!)

Having tried the food and finished having my caricature drawn, I checked out the juggling act, the mime, and played a little with the magician. (Where on earth do magicians hide their cards and strings? I even looked up his jacket sleeves during the trick, but nothing except shirt sleeves were up there.) When the magician started making off-color jokes with me and the two women who had joined up with me again, I said my goodbyes to all three of them and called it a night.