There is something deliciously intimate about a luncheon party in a friend's home. We are not talking about 'Ladies who Lunch' here who regularly go out to see and be seen.  Luncheon in a restaurant and luncheon in a home are very different and getting rarer and rarer since taking out some one to lunch is a great deal easier when you are working than inviting them home. So luncheons in private homes are becoming more and more rare. Even grandmothers are busy these days. No more rocking chairs for us.

 

Yes, there is a certain exclusivity about being included in a small party to celebrate a birthday. This is a chance to relax and socialize in a welcoming and private environment and to  be able to move and talk to every one of the guests.

 

Now Pauline Boffa's daughters Lara and Nadine have been organising high tea to celebrate her birthday in May for a number of years. I attended the last few: one in her garden, in a Mediterranean ambience, with lemon and orange trees providing a delightful backdrop and the other two in tearooms specifically set up as such, tea, especially in winter, has become popular.

Well, this year there wasn't going to be tea for Pauline's birthday but luncheon at the country home of her daughter Lara and partner Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando.

As we approached the gate I remembered that one birthday tea had been held behind those very gates.

I arrived with a friend who knew the way and who is always so ready to give me a lift, to find that at least another six guests were comfortably seated in the garden, a glass of prosecco in hand. Yes, even at teaparties I have attended in the last three or so years the prosecco starts flowing early and provides good lubrication as we catch up with friends we may not have seen for at least a year. These interludes never matter very much as there is always plenty to talk about. Life being what it is we don't meet often but many of us have common likes and dislikes and conversation especially news is never a problem.

 

Now, that with age my stomach seems to have shrunk a little the canapés and prosecco would have been enough lunch. But soon dishes of delicious looking food started quietly appearing on the big table to the side.  At the sight of so many good things my stomach started being hungry again. It is so inconsistent. So, we gradually left our seats and surveyed the feast. This was not one of those buffet lunches, so loved by many, where people leave their table and fill their plates indiscriminately with fish, meat, pasta, rice, all atop each other, as if they are fearing there would not be anything left if they didn't help themselves NOW. I call it the Great Siege mentality. 'Let me make the best of it while it lasts' kind of. 'The Turks may arrive any minute and deprive us of it.'

Time was on our side and food aplentiful so we could make up our own menu and enjoy each dish more or less seperately.

We helped ourselves at a leisurely pace and savoured every morsel while sitting down and conversing with whoever happened to be near us. And then went up for more. By now everyone had changed seats so we could converse with someone new and catch up with their news.

Then desserts arrived. I say desserts because there was more than one and no one was counting their calories believe me, least of all my greedy self.  Is it possible not to try at least a couple of those other worldly concotions?   I regret what I miss out on and not what I indulge in. I always silently salute the makers of desserts with a special thank you. I can't even get a Betty Crocker mix right, for goodness sake.

 

Lara did not warn us that there was a lovely selection of petit fours and ciocolatini coming up after dessert.  And then of course the birthday cake.  We finished off with coffee or tea.
It was all so efficiently done, seamless and no fuss.

 

Buffet lunches are better than having guests imprisoned round a table. And not only because there is a bigger choice of food but because it is less formal and one can circulate and talk to a lot more people.

We talked and we talked and we ate and we ate and drank, too. But one thing I observed. Everyone there was doing some kind of work, voluntary mostly. Minding grandchildren, waiting for them at bus stops as they arrived from school, playing the organ in church, preparing meals for children and their family thus making lighter the burden of working mothers and so on.

 

I asked Lara if she remembered her grandfather, Sir Paul Boffa. No, he died before she was born. After politics he went back to painting and "we have some of his paintings which we cherish."  

Pauline met 'il Profs' his son, in Valletta. "I was 19. He was 16 years older but what a wonderful husband and father he was. The age gap made absolutely no difference to our relationship which I will cherish until I die."

 

I don't know if any of you remember the song The Ladies who Lunch, by that genius Stephen Sondheim. It was very famous in its day. Here are the first lines:

"I'd like to propose a toast

Here's to the ladies who lunch

Lounging in their caftans and planning a brunch."

 

Once in a while, lunches are lovely. This certainly was. 

 

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