To celebrate the end of winter term and the 1L class we’ve been teaching, Professor Wilkins invited the teaching team — his assistant, me and the other TA, and the firm partner/practitioner — plus significant others to his beautiful Victorian house for a dinner party. Oh man, if there’s any way to go through law school, it’s going to dinner parties at professors’ houses — they really know what they’re doing. Caviar, Dom Perignon (!!), and. . . conversation about Jersey Shore. I kid you not. It was the partner’s wife (also an attorney) who first broached the subject, but after a few minutes of animated discussion we found out that Professor Wilkins, my husband, and Neema (the other TA) were also talking about Jersey Shore on the other side of the table. I think what tipped off the two groups that we were having the same conversation was the repeated use of the word “Snooki.”
It was a fantastic evening — a perfect combination of interesting conversation (over the course of the four hours we did manage to discuss a few things other than Jersey) and all of the finer living type things grad student budgets never allow. At some point in the planning process, I was asked, “What’s your favorite type of caviar?” I was tempted to blurt out “Beluga,” simply because it was the only specific type of caviar I could think of, but thought better of it because there was a nagging suspicion in the back of my mind that perhaps the reason I had heard of it was because it was ridiculously expensive (it is, and that is indeed likely the reason I’ve heard of it. Sometimes that nagging suspicion is smart.). Who am I kidding? I don’t have a favorite type of caviar. I’ve had it maybe once before, twice if you count the time we caught a female catfish full of eggs from the pond on my uncle’s farm when I was ten. Now that I’m thinking about it, I don’t think we actually ate that, but I definitely remember my uncle pointing to the eggs as he was cleaning the fish and saying, “That, kiddos, is caviar.”
Whatever type of caviar we had at the party, it was delicious, and the wines really stole the show. The professor had gone to the trouble of choosing a wine for each course that came from a college graduation year of one of the guests, and he dedicated each bottle accordingly. I’m still impressed, even thinking back on it now. I feel like things like this will be some of my favorite memories from law school. Plus, dinner parties always make me feel like such a grown-up. Fist pumps to that.
– Erin
