11. how to plan a dinner party
A guide to cooking unnecessarily large amounts of food, for people you were hoping would turn down your invitation to a dinner party
The holiday season is among us - the Americans are wrapping up Thanksgiving, the British are being inundated with supermarket Christmas ads, Maria Carey has emerged from her den to murder us repeatedly with what she wants for Christmas (it’s you by the way), and we’re up to our necks in Black Friday sale emails.
By now you’ve likely been roped kicking and screaming into attending several dinner party affairs, I know I have, one of which involves finding a funny secret Santa gift which has elevated my stress levels ten-fold. I’ve also decided to host a NYE party because I feel like I don’t give myself enough anxiety on a daily basis that planning an entire meal for 10 people should be the big bang I need to round off 2022.
As it’s the season of joy and gifts and eating excessive amounts of food till we unbuckle our trousers at the dinner table only to gorge on more food twenty minutes later, we must plan the party appropriately.
As Taylor Swift sang in Mastermind, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” She’s right, to have no plan is a suicide mission.
So here are my hot tips as someone who has never thrown a dinner party before... BUT since my actual paying-the-bills job is a project manager, I believe I can whip up a few useful titbits on how to plan and execute a memorable dinner party.
1. So, What’s Cookin’ Doc?
A menu is needed. If you do nothing else, you have to at least decide what you’re going to present to your starving guests, even if everything is store-bought.
Appetisers – These can be simple. Whack a charcuterie board together, some Caprese salad skewers and devilled eggs onto a large platter.
from shares 40 small snacks to eat before the big meal. If all else fails, provide a few dips and a bag of tortilla chips. Those are never left unopened, if fact, they’re always the first to be devoured.Main dish - Roast something. Make it a one pot dish that can be thrown into the oven and left to cook with minimal checking. This isn’t the time to be taking out all the pots and pans. This roast chicken thigh recipe is a sure winner.
Two side dishes - vegetables, potatoes, grains, more vegetables if your guests are rabbits or worse, vegetarians. If they’re vegan, un-invite them. seriously. (that’s a joke people, don’t DM me).
Dessert - So many options for you choose from. Offer two in case you’ve got picky eaters: Mousse cups, a lemon tart, pavlovas, or tiramisu. Remember, store bought is acceptable and these can always be made ahead of time.
2. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail
If there is anything that I’ve learned from cooking all the time, mis-en-place is absolutely key. This means you prepare what you can ahead of time - cut those carrots, slice the onions and garlics, peel the potatoes. Do you have enough oven space? Don’t you dare put the roast vegetables on at the same time as the roast chicken otherwise the vegetables will come out quicker and become cold before your chicken has even browned. Suddenly your carnivores will be eating your vegetarians and it’ll descend into utter chaos, a real Jurassic World 5 right in your dining room.
3. KISS - Keep it simple, stupid.
A dinner party isn’t the time to test new recipes. You will only enter uncharted territory and if you’ve not perfectly planned how to cook it, you could end up ruining the whole night and once again, everything descends into chaos. So, let’s KISS - Keep it simple, stupid. Use a recipe that you’ve mastered or, at the very least, one that you've made at once before. Once you’ve got appetisers, sides and salads being passed around like they’re on a conveyor belt, the main dish hardly needs to be a showstopper.
4. If you don’t have it, you don’t need it.
It goes without saying that if you don’t have everything you need for your dinner party, you’ve clearly failed instruction number two. In this case, I can only offer one piece of advice: Fuck it. I can 100% guarantee you, you don’t need it. Don’t have celery for the stew? It’s fine, nobody likes celery. Need saffron? No, you don’t. The £4 isn’t worth it. Nobody even knows what saffron tastes like.
Also just google substitutes, you’re more likely to have something similar hidden somewhere in the cupboard. Or ask a guest to bring it, which leads me into point five.
5. Ask For Help
I hate asking for help, I absolutely abhor having someone assist me in the kitchen and when in chef-mode, I believe everyone cuts onions too slow and incorrectly. I much prefer to frantically smack pots around, kick drawers shut with my feet, yell at the dog and then sigh really loudly every few minutes. It’s easier. However, if you prefer not to show everyone your dark side, asking for help is recommended. Select a competent individual - I know there aren’t very many - but pick someone to make the appetisers, ask another to bring the desserts, if someone is good at making cocktails, perhaps they assist on drinks. Including people in it can ensure that it’s celebration of being together and not just you playing restaurant in your own home.
6. Give it all away
The worst and best part about dinner parties is all the food at the end, if there is any. If you planned all your proportions to a tee such that you don’t have a single leftover, then I tip my hat to you because that’s some serious planning. However, if you’ve made an extreme amount then the best way to get rid of leftovers aside from chucking it over the fence at the neighbours you hate, is to give pack it in to-go boxes.
Send everyone off with a bit of something, doesn’t matter how much. If they truly loved it, fuck it, give them all of it. It’s a bit like playing hot potato, you want to offload it so you have less of it storing in your freezer for months on end. Don’t lie, we all use the freezer as a universal second-bin; we’re always assuming we will spend the time to defrost that unrecognisable block of beef stew in three months time, but we never do.
This very last section are for those such as myself who need to go over the top. We have to outrank people at the game of Host. We need everyone to be enjoying themselves at level 10; people need to be having so much fun that in several years time, they’ll still be talking about the exhilarating night that was The Dinner Party of 2022.
So here’s a mini list of things that could be added that aren’t food related but elevate the dinner party experience.
Small gift bags - pack it with three little gifts. Something small such as a macaroons, a mini bottle of Prosecco and a candle. Or maybe a little bag of something homemade, I’ve offered freshly made biscotti as a treat. It’s the thought that elevates the experience.
Place cards - I went to a Thanksgiving dinner party where my name was written in silver cursive on an agate stone plaque. It was beautiful.
A photo booth - Have polaroids and a little corner set up to make the make the moment memorable.
Print the menu - if you want to be super fancy. Another bit of memorabilia that people might enjoy.
So let’s get planning! Mine’s already 90% done, talk about efficient, eh? I’d love to know what you’re cooking this season so don’t be selfish, share that recipe below!
I always TRY to give food away but people end up leaving without any lol!
Love this. Reminds me of a book I have “what’s a hostess to do” it might be a good read piggy backing off of this article