Melinda Smith’s friends think she’s a domestic goddess. Her knack for baking, entertaining and hosting fabulous dinner parties wows them.

“I’m so flattered they feel that way,” the Royal Palm Beach resident said. “But I’m certainly no goddess.”

Smith also knows how to decorate, paint, wallpaper and put up drywall. “I do it all. I guess it’s because for a long time if I wanted something done, I had to do it myself,” she said. “So now it gives me great pleasure.”

Smith hosts an elaborate Christmas party each year that includes a theme and a buffet with everything from appetizers to desserts. She usually serves between 40 and 60 people. Last year’s theme was Chinese. “I usually start planning months in advance,” she said.

In addition to doing all the cooking and preparing her home for the party, she does the dishes. But she does break away from the kitchen to spend time with her guests. “I’ve found that your guests expect you to sit and enjoy yourself, too,” Smith says. “They’re not having a good time if you’re not enjoying yourself.”

Chuck Goldstein, a friend of Smith’s who attends many of her get-togethers, said, “I think so much of this lady. She’s just so talented. I tease her that her initials are M.S. and she is the Martha Stewart of Palm Beach County.”

Smith and a friend have an annual baking day during the winter holidays and give their treats as gifts. They get up early and bake cookies and other goodies long in to the evening. “This year we had so much fun we actually did it for two days,” Smith says.

As a favor, Smith spent six months working for a friend’s interior decorating business, but she has no training in the field. “I don’t know. It just comes to me,” she says. She also enjoys watching cooking and decorating shows on television.

Smith says that she comes from a long line of women who are handy around the house. “There is a story that my great-grandmother, who lived into her 90s, formed and built a front porch herself,” Smith says.

Smith was born and raised in West Palm Beach. She moved to Royal Palm Beach in the 1970s. “My mother actually owned the first beauty salon in Royal Palm.” Smith has seen a lot of growth in the western communities over the years, but that’s just fine with her. “I love the growth. I like the improvement and the conveniences like the shopping malls,” she says. “But I regret that we’re losing the trees and there will be no land left for our grandchildren.”

Smith and her husband Bob have been married since 1983. He had two girls and she had two boys when they met, and now they have five grandchildren. The entire family, with the exception of her son and daughter-in-law, lives in the area, and Smith says she often entertains the family at her home.

Smith retired from a career as a cosmetologist in September and now baby-sits her grandson. “And when my daughter-in-law returns to work, I’ll be watching my new granddaughter,” she says. “Boy, that keeps me busy.”

When she’s not baby-sitting, she’s working on her next domestic project. “I had a luncheon with the ladies that I worked with recently. We visited and played bingo,” she says. “I had it catered with deli meats, and that makes it really easy. They really enjoyed themselves.”

She says her husband supports her “domestic goddess” tendencies. “He always says, ‘It’s such hard work, are you sure you want to do this?’ But in the end we’re always happy with the results,” Smith says. “I guess it’s really just a passion.”

source : www.palmbeachpost.com