Sally Breslin: My Life: SOME PEOPLE HAVE A SPECIAL KNACK FOR ENTERTAINING GUESTS

There are some people who enjoy hosting dinner parties and entertaining guests so much, they do it as effortlessly as brushing their teeth. I honestly believe they were born with a special talent for it in their blood.

Unfortunately, I learned many years ago that I’m not one of them.

I had further proof of it last week when my friends Nancy and Paul invited me over for dinner. As I sat at their beautifully set table with a cloth tablecloth and napkins, china teacups with roses on them, and the silverware laid out in the proper order next to my plate, I envisioned what the table would have looked like if they had been dining at my house instead…vinyl placemats, paper plates and paper napkins, plastic cutlery and Solo cups, with my two huge dogs sitting next to them and begging for food throughout the entire meal.

At Paul and Nancy’s, I was served a thick, juicy steak that was so tender, even if I hadn’t had a single tooth in my mouth, I still would have been able to chew it with ease. It was accompanied by a potato that was perfectly shaped, perfectly baked, and was hot and fluffy on the inside.

Had I served that same meal, the potato’s skin would have been shriveled and dark brown, with the inside still raw and as hard as a brick. And the only jaws able to handle any steak I ever cook would be the jaws of life.

Without exaggeration, in the past 30 years, I have cooked only one steak that actually was chewable. And I’ve tried everything – tenderizers, marinades, meat hammers, broiling, frying, grilling and baking – all of which have led me to come to one irrefutable conclusion…

Steak hates me.

No matter how much I pay for it or how much the meat-cutter or butcher tells me it’s the most tender cut ever created, the minute I touch it and try to cook it, it turns into a giant elastic-band. No, make that a slab of rawhide.

But Paul has never cooked a bad steak. I have been waiting years for him to plunk a chunk of jaw-dislocating gristle on my plate, just so I won’t feel so inferior, but it hasn’t happened yet, not even close. His steaks always are cooked to perfection. And whenever I ask him what he did to make them so juicy and tender, hoping he might share some secret family technique handed down through the generations, he always just shrugs and says, “I don’t know, I don’t do anything special. I just cook it.”

Easy for him to say.

And then there is Nancy – who bakes everything from scratch – cakes, brownies, cookies, cobblers – and they all turn out looking as if they should be in a bakery display-case. No Betty Crocker or Duncan Hines boxes ever would be seen in Nancy’s kitchen…mainly because Betty and Duncan actually could take lessons from her when it comes to baking.

During my visit last week, she made brownies and frosted lemon cookies – both of which she knew are my favorites. That’s another thing that makes Paul and Nancy such great hosts – they memorize everyone’s favorite foods and then prepare most of them in a single meal. As a result, I ate so much, I honestly thought I’d have to sleep overnight slumped over their dining table because I was too full to move away from it.

But their entertaining also goes far beyond the meal. They know I love to play word games, so after we ate, they suggested we play a couple of my favorites – Upwords and Scattergories…while having tea and more brownies and cookies.

When I finally got home that night, carrying lots of yummy leftovers Nancy packed up for me, I was one very happy and satisfied guest...who'd just spent hours being pampered and treated like royalty.

The only problem is I always end up feeling guilty after I eat at Paul and Nancy’s because I know I can’t reciprocate and invite them over for the same royal treatment. For one thing, they are such great cooks, anything I’d serve them would taste like military K-rations in comparison.

I mean, the last batch of cookies I baked is still stuck to the cookie sheet because the dough acted like quick-drying cement and I figure I’ll probably have to sand-blast it off. Also, my best dinner plates were purchased at the going-out-of-business sale at Building 19, a store that used to buy up surplus stock from other stores that had been damaged by tornadoes, floods or fires.

And as I previously mentioned, even my dogs have trouble chewing my steaks.

I did try baking brownies from scratch once when Paul and Nancy were coming over.

After Paul ate one, his comment was, “The walnuts in them were good.”

He was trying to be kind. That’s because the brownies were as dry as the Sahara and tasted like chocolate cardboard. I think I actually saw some of the walnuts leaping to their deaths, just so they could escape from those terrible brownies.

So no, I’m afraid I won’t be inviting my dear friends over for a reciprocal home-cooked meal any time soon, mainly because I’m trying to preserve what little dignity I have left…along with their stomachs.

I’m pretty sure they will thank me for it.

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Sally Breslin is an award-winning syndicated humor columnist who has written regularly for newspapers and magazines all of her adult life. She is the author of several novels in a variety of genres, from humor and romance to science fiction. Contact her at: sillysally@att.net.