Welcome to Kellermans

Where the watermelons carry themselves and all the spaghetti have arms.

It takes a specific type of person to base an entire dinner party around the greatest film ever made, and I am that person. Hopefully you are too, because if you don’t like taking things to an extreme in the name of Patrick Swayze, then you will be extremely displeased with everything that is about to happen. But I’m not here to make friends - I’m here to spread the gospel of Dirty Dancing.

It was the summer of 1963 and Baby didn’t think she’d ever find a guy as great as her dad, that is until Johnny Castle came along. He showed her how to mambo, she carried a watermelon, Johnny went wiiiiiiild, and they nailed the lift as a singular “fuck you” to anyone who tried to keep them down. It’s one of the great love stories of our time. But Dirty Dancing isn’t just about romantic love. It’s about love in all forms — the familial love between a father and daughter, the friendly love between platonic dance partners, and the agape love that Baby shows when she helps Penny. One of the most memorable scenes of the film comes when Baby confronts her father on the porch and says “There are a lot of things about me that aren’t what you thought, but if you love me, you have to love all the things about me.”

That’s the only part of the movie I don’t agree with. We don’t have to love everything about someone to love them. To truly love a person, we have to do so despite not loving everything about them. Perfect people are easy to love. It’s the weirdos we have to work at. And since we are all weirdos and nobody is perfect, we gotta get used to loving each other, even when its hard. The secret is to drop expectations. Expectations get in the way.

Now, to be clear, we can, and should, expect the people we love to treat us with kindness, support and respect. But we can’t expect them to make the bed every morning, or read our minds. We especially can’t expect them not to borrow $250 and tell us it’s for something totally legal, when in fact, it is to help a stranger get a back-alley abortion in the 1960s. Basically, we have to let people dance when they feel like dancing, and they don’t even have to do it well. That’s the true message of Dirty Dancing. Even if someone has spaghetti arms, you can still love them.

Speaking of spaghetti arms, let’s talk food. The recipes today and over the next couple of weeks are inspired by Catskill resort + classic steakhouse food, circa 1963 — the year and location where Dirty Dancing is set. We start with a watermelon double header: a salad and a candelabra that’s sure to brighten your very own Dirty Dancing dinner party; and then we head into the spaghetti mash-up you didn’t know you needed. See you on the other side.

I’ll be back next week with more recipes from our summer at Kellermans. If you want to buy the Dirty Dancing recipe card set, you can do so right here.

Stay Messy,

McBroom

PS - Do you want a Kellerman’s plate? Email party@ruinedtable.com if so. If there is enough interest, I’ll make more! And if there is waaaaay more interest, I’ll be able to make them more cheaply, and will totes pass the savings on to you.