Seventeen people fit in our living room, it turns out, as long as the kids are willing to sit on a quilt on the floor and one of the guests is a heeler who thinks the whole thing is a herding exercise. I know because on Friday night we packed it for the USA's opening World Cup match.
The World Cup started on June 11, and North Texas is hosting matches at the stadium in Arlington, so the whole area has been a little soccer-crazy for weeks. We were never going to the stadium. I looked up ticket prices once for fun and closed the tab. But a living room, a TV and a Crock-Pot of carnitas are within our budget, and it was Tuan's idea anyway. He's the only real soccer fan on our street, and he's been talking about this summer since the schedule came out.
Who came
The five of us, Tuan and Lisa Nguyen and their two girls from across the street, the Garzas from down the block (all five of them), Mrs. Patterson from next door, and Dan and Erin, who live twenty minutes away but have earned honorary neighbor status by showing up to everything Matt has ever lit a fire for. That's twelve guests and seventeen people. Everyone brought drinks, which was the only thing I asked for.
The food, and what it cost
A Friday watch party with an evening kickoff meant something that could hold for hours and be eaten off a paper plate on a couch. I went with a taco bar, because I can do one in my sleep and because nobody in North Dallas has ever turned down carnitas.
- A pork shoulder from Costco, just under 8 pounds: $17.84
- Tortillas, four packs of flour and two of corn: $9.10
- Onion, cilantro, limes and a jar of salsa verde: $5.80
- Tortilla chips and a big jar of red salsa: $6.20
- Charro beans, from a whole bag of pintos with bacon and a jalapeño: $4.10
- A watermelon: $5.98
- Sugar cookies with red, white and blue frosting: $6.40
- Hot dogs and buns for the kids who don't do tacos: $5.68
- Plates, cups and napkins: $8.90
- Ice: $4.00
That's $74 for seventeen people, about $4.35 each. The pickled jalapeños on the table came from our backyard plants, which are just starting to produce, so I'm calling those free.
How the day ran
Friday isn't an office day, so I had the house to myself while the kids played outside. I worked it backward from kickoff like a catering ticket:
- 7:00 a.m.: cookies in the oven, while the kitchen was still cool. That was the last time the oven came on this month.
- 8:00 a.m.: pork shoulder cut into big chunks, rubbed with cumin, oregano, garlic and salt, and into the Crock-Pot on low with orange juice and a sliced onion.
- 1:00 p.m.: pintos into the Instant Pot for charro beans, no soaking.
- 4:00 p.m.: pork shredded and crisped in the cast iron in four batches, then back into the Crock-Pot on Warm. Cookies frosted, with Rosie in charge of sprinkles, which means some cookies have none and one has about a tablespoon.
- An hour before kickoff: the island set as a buffet, and the tortillas wrapped in towels inside a small cooler, which keeps them warm for hours without heating the kitchen.
- Kickoff: everybody fed, the Crock-Pot still on Warm for seconds at halftime.
The Garzas' youngest and both Nguyen girls ate hot dogs on the quilt. Eli ate a plain hot dog with no bun at the kitchen table, facing away from the beans. Mrs. Patterson had two carnitas tacos and told me they were "better than the ones at the place on the corner," which I'm going to frame. And she brought her lemon pound cake, of course.
What I'd change
I underbought hot dogs. I planned them for the kids, and the kids ate them, and then so did Dan, Matt and half the grown-ups. By the second half there were two left and four little kids looking at them. Matt grilled the last two packs out of our own freezer on the kettle. Next time, one hot dog per person, whoever they are.
I'd also put out twice as many corn tortillas. I figured the flour ones would go first, and I was wrong. Half the room wanted corn, and they were gone by halftime.
I'm not going to recap the match. I spent most of it refilling the tortilla cooler and finding the bottle opener, and I'd get the details wrong. What I can tell you is that our living room was louder than any football game I've hosted, that Rosie clapped every single time the room cheered whether or not she knew why, and that Biscuit spent the second half lying across the doorway to the kitchen so nobody could leave without stepping over him.
About two pounds of carnitas were left. They became Sunday's tacos and Monday's burrito bowls. Tuan was at our door Saturday morning to return a cooler, and he already had a list of the next matches.
