A LUCKY FLUKE

I should have been hiking up Enchanted Rock with the Muses last Saturday, to celebrate Outdoor Woman’s Big-Six-Oh.  Thankfully, um, I mean regretfully, we got rained out and had to postpone it.  Since we couldn’t let the day go uncelebrated, we had to come up with Plan B on the fly.  A volley of emails and phone calls bounced back, forth and diagonally across the Wimberley valley, with everyone tossing out suggestions, until finally O.W. said “I hope this isn’t too much to ask, but to tell you the truth, my favorite place to dine is Chez Becky.  Would you consider making some more of those Havarti-Pecan Quesadillas for us, and letting us just hang at your place?”

Well, to be perfectly honest, my first impulse was to say, “Are you nuts?  With no advance warning and only two or three hours to get ready?  Not only no, but hell no!”  You see, all those great housekeeping routines that I was learning from Fly Lady, around this same time last year, sorta went by the wayside when hubby moved up here full-time.  He’s just so darn good at being spontaneous, and suggesting activities that sound so much more enticing than mopping or dusting (which more than makes up for him being not so good at putting things away when he’s done with them). Then, however, I remembered!  Just the day before I had decided “Enough with the clutter!”, and finally got around to clearing the dining table of our various projects and detritus, packed up the Christmas wrap crate and hid it in a corner of our bedroom, and pulled out the beautiful red and sage green jacquard tablecloth that I treated myself to in Provence.  I’d even cleared off the kitchen counters!

Better yet, I actually had 3/4 of a bacon and arugula quiche in my fridge, leftover from our dinner, and just enough of my homegrown tomatoes to make some more of the baked tomatoes and goat cheese with the crunchy, garlicky breadcrumb topping that I had served with it.  Why, I even had some vanilla bean ice cream in the freezer, and bottles of Cassis and Kahlua that we could drizzle over it.  A little voice started whispering “Becky, you can do this!”, and before I could change my mind, I shot off an email to them all which read “You’re on!  12:00!  My house!”

I got dressed and went to Mima’s, where I enjoyed a yummy breakfast taco and a crossword puzzle, and picked up a dozen of their fluffy, handmade tortillas to take home with me.  Next stop was the grocery store, where I nabbed some more Havarti and a bottle of O.W.’s favorite wine.  Last stop was the Sugar Shack, where I picked up a little mini version of their fabulous chocolate-espresso cake -- the same one they make for The Leaning Pear Cafe.

Once home, all I had to do was pop the quiche and tomatoes into the oven, pull out the wonderful winter dishes I stumbled across in an Indonesian market about 20 years ago (the irony of that still puts a smile on my face each time I use them) and grate the cheese.  When the girls arrived, I sipped wine and supervised while they assembled and sauteed their own quesadillas, and I came off looking like Martha-Freakin’-Stewart. My Momma woulda been so dang proud!