Dinner parties are meant to be fun, but they can also be a source of stress and dissatisfaction for the cook. The way to avoid this is thru well thought out planning.
Obviously you will give careful consideration to your visitors, their likes, dislikes and even any allergies they may have. But it’s’s equally as critical to consider your own wishes what you like to cook and what you are good at.
It’s better by far to form dishes you are familiar with than to try something new because you hope to inspire. The trick is to make everything look simple, and the way to do that’s to use variations on recipes you already know backwards.
On the other hand, if that implies no improvement on spaghetti Bolognaise, another approach might be called for and a little more planning may be required. Select your recipes with care.
Decide very early on how many courses you intend to serve. It is in no fashion critical to serve 3 courses plus cheese just because that has a tendency to be normal. But if you do decide to follow that convention there are just a few things it’d be helpful to consider.
Avoid, for example, utilizing the same most important ingredient in more than one dish. I.e. Don’t serve a quiche followed by something else in pastry, or add a robust flavor like chili to over one dish.
Plan, also, how you intend to cope with both preparing and serving the food. If your menu means that you are going to need to spend longer in the kitchen than you do with your guests, you want to re-think
Design your courses so that as much as is possible can be prepared in advance. A straightforward way to do that’s to serve just one hot dish, maybe the main course, one course at a comfortable temperature and one direct from the fridge. The cheese can look after itself.
talking of which, here is something that you might like to think about. In Australia and the UK, cheese is served at the end of the meal. In France it is served before the pudding. I recommend the latter course.
the cause of that is because it puts the timing forcefully in your hands as to when the meal is over and it’s time for the guests to go home.
Let them linger over the cheese until you are ready to bring the evening to a close. Then serve the pudding with only one bottle of good pudding wine, having cleared all the other dishes, including the cheese board.
You do this by bringing two dishes to the table, and taking one or two dishes away as if to make room for more. With a bit of practice you may become awfully adroit at this and the table will clear as if by magic.
Once the pudding is finished, choose your time to offer coffee and a final nightcap of port or brandy, if that’s what you would usually do. Most guests will understand the coffee indicates the end of the evening and won’t even bear in mind that you have manipulated the timing in this way. And even if they are they will potentially admire you for it and adopt the same system themselves.
Above all, remember that everything you serve has turned out just as it was meant to. Never ever create excuses or apologize for your food.
Create it with conviction, serve it with panache.You can read more about dinner party planning here: http://www.partyplanninghelp-mark.com/dinner-party-planning/
