Letter from Boston

Overabundance

By MASAKO YAMADA

I decided to have a dessert party for my birthday this year. For the past few years, I have made dinner for my guests, but I chose to have this kind of party because I wanted to spend more time socializing, and less time running to and from the refrigerator and stove.

The good thing about cakes and cookies is that they can be made well ahead of time and be left out without worrying about the cold foods getting warm or the hot foods getting cold. I didn't want the party to be too boisterous and I thought a tea party would inspire people to behave.

About 30 people showed up at the party, so it was still quite an ordeal. Many people brought bottles of wine as gifts but not many people drank alcohol, so things were definitely under control. The party had a very lively, conversational feel to it and I'm convinced that it's partly because people were not too busy getting drunk.

I invited friends from my different social circles and it seems that they got along well. As a matter of fact, the guests got along so well with each other, I didn't have a chance to speak to many of them.

I admit that I might have gone a bit overboard in preparing for the party. Even though I didn't have to do too much work at the last minute, I worked for an entire evening the day before to prepare all the desserts.

I wanted a good selection of cake flavors, so I made a lemon cake, banana cake and carrot cake. I wanted some things people could nibble with their fingers, so I made coconut macaroons, ginger cookies and chocolate candies. I wanted some creamy desserts, so I made tiramisu, rice pudding and key lime pie.

I also wanted to make an "interactive" dessert like crepes with a fruit topping, but it would have been too much trouble to flip dozens of pancakes, so I just poured crepe batter into a cake pan, baked it and then poured the topping over the whole thing.

By the time I was finished, the kitchen table was completely covered with desserts and I felt a little bit sick.

It's ironic that just the day before, I spent the day collecting garbage off the surface of a river. I worked as a volunteer to help clean up the Charles River as a part of the Earth Day events.

I had expected the "Charles River cleanup" to involve a chatty walk along the bank with other volunteers while picking up stray bits of garbage here and there. What I saw was people wading in waist-deep water wearing rubber pants and raking garbage off the surface of the river.

We worked on one of the tributaries that runs into the Charles. Because the flow of water is so bad, garbage tends to collect in one spot. That is the spot we worked on. The water was like sewage. Smells of urine and alcohol were mixed in with the smell of rotting leaves and branches.

The boldest volunteers waded into the water and raked the stuff toward the shore, and the rest of us collected the garbage in plastic bags. There were a lot of large branches mixed in with the garbage that we had to separate before we could put the smaller stuff into bags.

The selection of items covering the water definitely surpassed the selection of items on my dessert table: plastic bags full of garbage, alcohol bottles, drink bottles, spray paint cans, a whipped cream can (people get high on the gas), a whole bundle of newspapers, lots of shoes, different kinds of balls, a dental device used to straighten teeth, condom packets, plastic vials, packaging material for boxes and a number of dead animals. Needless to say, I felt quite sick witnessing the entire "buffet."

It made me angry to think that people could throw things into the river without thinking about it and that the state couldn't hire anybody to clean it up, but I was inspired by my peers who worked so hard. A lot of the volunteers worked the entire time without a real meal or break. The truth is that the work was quite addictive and it was satisfying to see a considerably cleaner river in the end.

I experienced two very basic kinds of satisfaction this weekend. Not a bad way to celebrate one's 26th birthday.

Shukan ST: April 28, 2000

(C) All rights reserved