We held the first of two back-to-back dinner parties on May 4, followed by another on May 5. Both were arranged to commemorate the improbable victory of the Spanish army over the French in the Battle of Puebla. The first evening was the Cinco de Mayo Eve party, also known as the Fiesta de Cuatro de Mayo. Of course, we have no vested interest in Cinco de Mayo other than that the fact that it provides a convenient excuse for a party.
Most of the first night’s guests were neighbors; women who play cards in my wife’s weekly game, along with their husbands. A few others were guests of my sister-in-law, friends she has made in connection with her involvement in groups of walkers. Members of the local writers’ club to which I belong comprised most of the second event’s guests.
We planned identical menus (the ingredients for taco salad and chips & salsa, plus full-octane as well as virgin margaritas, along with assorted non-alcoholic beverages) for both shindigs, easing the task of orchestrating the events. A number of the first night’s guests brought appetizers; because we did not go through all of them, we offered a few of those nibbles to guests the following evening.
The party began last year as a neighborhood gathering (mostly my wife’s card group with just a few others). During the subsequent year, our spheres of friends and interesting acquaintances expanded. As we considered this year’s event, we realized the list of potential invitees easily exceeded sixty, a number well beyond our ability to host in a single evening. So, we decided to do two. Even so, we had to limit the numbers to roughly 25 invitees per night. We considered three evenings, but that became more than my brain could handle, so we limited ourselves to two nights. As I consider next year, we’re thinking of moving the event to the weekend and making it an “open house” event, with a three or four-hour window for guests to visit. For example, we might begin the event at 4:00 p.m. and end by 8:00 p.m. Rather than provide seating for everyone, we could have Mexican-themed hors d’oeuvre, food that’s easy to eat while standing.
Next year, if we were to replicate this year, we’d need to adjust our purchasing to reflect this year’s experiences. We bought fifteen pounds of ground beef; ten pounds will suffice for fifty guests. We bought three heads of lettuce; two will do. We bought four containers of margarita mix; we needed only three. We bought the equivalent of three 750ML bottles of tequila; even though we had leftover margaritas, we’d better stick to that figure. We bought about eight pounds of tomatoes; six would have worked.
Several additional people I’d like to invite next year belong to some groups inside and outside the Village that we’ve discovered tend to comprise intelligent people with whom we share interests and philosophies: the Democratic Club, the Unitarian Universalist church, and some members of the arts community in and around Hot Springs. But, again, we have the issue with capacity. This year, several invitees did not attend, so I suppose we need to take that into account in planning, but we have to be prepared in case everyone does, indeed, show up at our door.
That’s it, for the record, so I can review this information when we start to plan for next year.
