(4 of 4)
There are many outlets for flowers, but it is hard to get just what you want--pale peach, but please, no pink--if your screen, like mine, bleaches the colors. The good news is that the roses I ordered arrived fresh and on time. The bad news is their color roughly matched that of the ham.
On Saturday, calling frantically for items that hadn't arrived, I lived out the sorry fact of modern life that at any given moment, 1 in 5 Americans is on hold for the next available customer representative with the added indignity, around the holidays, of having to endure endless rounds of Jingle Bell Rock. Not to single out Williams-Sonoma--because it happens just about everywhere--but when you get your stuff depends on what a company's definition of "submit now" is. You submit, they process, and depending on the distributor, or the manufacturer, the popularity of your item, or who's out with the flu that day, you will get it overnight--or in a week. The polite "associate" at Williams-Sonoma sent me an apron and refunded my shipping costs. I guess there's such a thing as a free apron.
Since the tablecloth would come too late for the party, I sponge-ironed the creases out of my old one until it almost fit. The foie gras, sourdough and olive Pugliese breads from San Francisco did not arrive until Tuesday. I became a culinary Luddite, baking two dozen rolls. On the day of the dinner, the waiter called in sick at 4 p.m. Well, that's why God made daughters--and editors visiting from Manhattan who know their way around a corkscrew.
Dinner and a good time were had by all, confirming my belief that people go to restaurants for good food and to friends' houses for good company. There were lots of leftovers (I had e-mailed a Maryland caterer and got a shrimp appetizer and a spare filet). And the ham was the size of an aircraft carrier. The morning after, I staggered to my desk and clicked my way to D.C. Central Kitchen dccentralkitchen.org) which recycles food to homeless shelters. A team came right away and wiped out all traces of My Cyberdinner.
My effort cost more than $2,000. That's not exactly a value meal. But when I read that during the week I was dining a la Web, Internet users spent more than double what had been spent the preceding week, I felt pleased that in this little piece of Web history I had played a part. Next time I have people over, I'm likely to revert to my old ways. I could have crawled to Safeway and back in the time it took to make an Internet dinner. But it was nice meeting Jeeves, even though he didn't work out in the end, and getting my Mac to honk.
All in all, a virtual success.