Boxing-day dinner party

NE 8th Avenue, Portland, December 26, 2012—

TO THE ELEGANT home of a couple of friends here tonight for a big day-after-Christmas party. It's so nice when your friends are professional cooks; you always eat so well. Tony had barbecued a couple of good-sized pork roasts; the result was almost exactly Roman porchetta.

But the miss-en-scene was not Roman but good ol' Amurcan BBQ, though with finesse and forethought. There were soft, tender, yielding little dinner rolls to split and ladle good sauce onto. There was an excellent slaw, with a little cilantro and some habañera peppers chopped into it. And there were trays of beautifully made mac and cheese.

Best of all, the huge serving table — there must have been close to forty guests — was bilaterally symmetrical, with a piquant slaw, sauce, and such on one side, a more retiring but still well flavored offering of the same on the other. And bowls of potato chips! And good brownies for dessert! Thanks, Diane and Tony…

I.P.A., "Intervention"