Thread by @asymmetricinfo

All right, I'm too tired to read the Very Serious Book I was going to read, so instead, let me regale you with the story of Mom and the Incredible, Ever Expanding Pre-Dinner Buffet.

https://twitter.com/asymmetricinfo/status/1440438447240482828

My mother is not like other mothers, when it comes to weddings. In general, I gather Moms have very strong opinions about dresses, and table settings, and guest lists, and flowers. A surprising number have bitter fights with their daughters over necklines and embroidery on SYTTD

This is Not My Mom.

It is so Not My Mom that when I said "Mom, do you have thoughts on wedding planning?" she looked blank and said "I don't know, your grandmother planned mine."

This was not, I must add, an opener to the confession that she had saved all her hopes and dreams for her own wedding, and would now make sure that they were carried out in mine.

She had no hopes and dreams for my wedding at all, as far as I could tell.

Except for the food.

So I mean, if you've read my writing on food (most recent example here washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…), you may have gotten some inkling of how important food is to my mother's family.

Food is our hobby, and our love language. Wherever there are two or more Farrell girls together, listen for the sound of chomping.

Basically the only thing we do together, other than some light landscaping, is make food, eat it, and jointly review the meals we've just eaten.

So Mom and I both cared about the quality of the wedding food.

But only Mom was *obsessed* about the quantity.

Literally obsessed. Every time we discussed the wedding, Mom asked, rather anxiously, if we were sure there would be enough food.

You might think Mom must be a 600 pound binge eater, but nope, she's congenitally svelte.

Or that maybe she'd survived a famine

And about that...

Okay, no, Mom did not survive a natural disaster. But she did survive a briefer man-made disaster: the wedding of yet another Certain Relative Who Shall Remain Nameless.

I didn't attend this wedding, as it took place during the same week as my business-school finals, and in another state. But Mom did. And something happened there so awful, so unbelievably horrifying, that the tale is still told almost every time she hears the word "wedding"...

They ran out of food.

Now, I was not there, so I cannot vouch for 100% of the details, but as I recall, the wedding took over a smallish hotel in a kind of remote location. There was a buffet. There were also a lot of young, hungry men.

Young and impecunious, they had perhaps not been overgenerous in budgeting for the buffet. Possibly the hotel miscalculated. Whoever was at fault, the young dudes walked away from the buffet with plates piled high as haystacks. Folks at the end of the line got nothing.

As you have probably already guessed, Mom was at the end of the line.

At first she did not believe. She waited, empty plate in hand, for more food to replace the empty steam trays. Finally she realized that was it, there wasn't going to be any food, and the wedding still had hours to run.

Being a sensible Mom, I believe she eventually lit out for McDonalds. But the damage was done; ever after she would bear the hidden, but no less painful, psychological scars left by The Time the Wedding Ran Out of Food.

We had our wedding at the Cosmos Club, which is in the middle of DC, and has a large dining room. I felt there was really very little chance that they would run out of food. But Mom worried. She fretted. She agonized.

She pushed us to order more food.

We were paying for the wedding, and Mom respected that. Or at least, she tried. But she grew visibly anxious when contemplating the possibility of inadequate comestibles.

When we went to the tasting, they offered three packages: three canapes plus appetizer, main, and cake; a more generous canape selection plus an additional course, and some gold-plated option after which your now-spherical guests eventually got rolled to the curb in wheelbarrows.

We were, as I think I mentioned, paying for the wedding. We were journalists, not investment bankers. We chose the modest option. Which was still, I must emphasize, very nice! There was shrimp cocktail!

My mother actually did make it a month before she broke down and called me.

"I've been thinking," she said, "what if that's not enough?"

To be clear: we were having a sit-down dinner. There was literally no chance that they were not going to make enough meals. But Mom Was Worried. And when Mom is worried, she brings it up.

Again. And again. And again.

You think you know where this is going, right? We upgraded to the "silver" option, and then to "gold".

And you're right, we did.

What you don't realize is that THAT WAS NOT ENOUGH.

I pause to note that the Cosmos Club is a brisk 5-10 minute walk from a number of good restaurants. If any of our guests were still famished, they could nip out, grab a burger, and be back for the cake cutting.

I paused to note this more than once for Mom. To little effect.

In a page I had not perused all that closely, the venue offered "add ons" to the pre-dinner offerings. Cheese table. Fruit. That sort of thing.

My mother perused that page. Very closely.

Every two weeks I got a call. "I've been thinking ..."

Every time Mom had a thought, it cost me another $250. By the end ... well, we might as well have been the guy in the old joke who looks at the menu, hands it back, and says "Yes."

I'm told the spread was memorably elaborate, as were the three-inch pours the bartenders gave.

Me, I think I had a mushroom tart, maybe.

But Mom remembers the wedding very fondly. And you know what?

That's priceless.