Dinner for 10 ready to serve.Photo by Taylor Costello
Of all social rituals, dinner parties will always be my favorite in which to partake and sponsor. An excellent host serves to alleviate hunger no matter its source. His first and most urgent priority is the comfort of his guests. Invite a group of strangers to your home for dinner and they will leave good friends.
1. Consider your guest list.
A dinner party is a social chemistry experiment whose reaction can make or derail a party. Avoid, as a matter of course, inviting any two guests between whom there is any sort of tension. While feuds and old tensions can be politely ignored throughout a dinner, the elephant in the room could very well fart on your plates and guests. A good meal can prove salve to splintered relationships, but one's duty as host is to consider the comfort of all his guests in attendance. Relational damage control is best left to more intimate encounters and reality television.
2. Cook as best you can.
Food is the centerpiece of a dinner party and, if prepared well enough, can turn your party into an event of note. Individually plated courses bespeak formality and elegance, but can be an incredible amount of work. Balancing the responsibilities of cook and host is still an act I have yet to master, but serving food family style instead will help you get away from the stove and let you enjoy yourself. If you have cooked well, your guests will applaud you with silence as they take their first bites.
Writer Ryan cooks up hearty meals for his soon-to-arrive guest.Photo by Taylor Costello
3. Serve hour d'ourves before dinner.
They can be simple as a plate of cheese or a plate of well-cooked vegetables skewered atop a smear of aioli. Guests should feel welcome as they trickle in the door and there is no gesture more endearing than to serve them hot, well-prepared food. Snacks laid on the table before diners arrive will also act as a buffer should you fall behind with dinner preparations. So long as those in attendance are eating, they will not mind or notice.
4. Get a hand.
To cook for a party of 10 alone is difficult and laborious, even for an experienced cook. When I throw a party, I always invite a guest to cook with me. Company in the kitchen is always good fun and can be of great help. Last week, I cooked a party for eight and invited a colleague to work alongside me who professed a lack of culinary experience or ability. I began by teaching her to hold a knife and pick rosemary. By the time we had finished cooking, she had assembled and cooked a marvelous vegetable preparation called byaldi, a beautifully arranged stew of eggplant, squash and tomatoes flavored with thyme, rosemary, garlic and olive oil that was the most delicious thing served that night. Communicate instructions clearly and another's hands can become an extension of your own.
5. Serve wine.
A glass of wine will do miracles for your dinner.Photo by Taylor Costello
Especially useful in a group of strangers little acquainted, a bottle of wine or three loosens inhibitions and can lend great spirit to conversation. Should you be blessed with enough Merlot, your job as host is to keep glasses full throughout the evening (including water for those who are not partaking in the other beverage). A good host strives to create parties well and fondly remembered by diners. Serving hard liquor during dinner is a simple mistake, which may subvert that goal. Serve nightcaps after dinner. Aim to fill your diners well, get them drunk and send them home. Lingering sh-tfaced dinner guests are often times more a chore than cleaning up after the party.
Reach the writer at rjespin1
