Party Planning

We have always entertained and, though I say it myself, we've become rather good at it. Our early entertainments were always pleasing, at least to the degree that the food was always good. But over the years we have learned that there is more to entertaining than good food.

The most important lesson is that the comfort of our guests is of primary importance. Serving good food is more or less a given. But being present to our guests is primary. We've learned this the hard way: the Christmas I don't remember because I was in the kitchen all night, the times when the testiness level between The Spouse and I was palpable to our guests. (Really, it is terribly bad form to fight with your spouse during a dinner party, even if he or she deserves it).

Creating an event that will ultimately please the guests and preserve the sanity of the hosts hinges on a few basic principles. The first is planning a menu that delivers excellent flavor with minimum effort. There was a time I would plan a feast around the most elaborate dishes I could find, mistakenly believing that I had to serve the equivalent of gilded peacock to please my guests. (Not that some of them wouldn't be delighted by such a display. Tim.) Entertaining isn't a a time to show off. It is gratifying to hear guests ooh and ahh but simple food, lovingly prepared and generously presented accomplish the same end.

Once the menu is established we plan. We look through all the recipes and figure out how much can be done in advance. Today for example, I will be preparing the soup course and part of the salad course. The Spouse will begin work on the sauce for the entree. That's really all there is to do but these steps will save us a lot of aggravation tomorrow.

Aggravation. When I think of the early feasts, of the way in which The Spouse and I had to compete for space in our phone booth sized apartment kitchen I'm amazed our marriage even survived our entertainments. We have very different cooking styles and we still don't necessarily have a corner on synchronicity. But if we have planned together we mitigate a lot of the tension that builds from our stylistic differences. We figure out who needs to be in the kitchen when, doing what in order to serve each course at its appointed time. It's not unlike the Joint Chiefs planning a military operation:

"Right. At 1300 hours F company will commence smelting of the gold. By 1500 hours S company will have plucked the peacock and pre-cooked the cardoons. Gilding will proceed at 1530, with radish rose carving to be carried out by 1700. Minstrals must be assembled by 1900 and bird will be piped precisely at 1930. Destination, head table, east by southeast. Are there any questions? Fall out!"

Meanwhile, I have to give snaps to my homegirl, Flylady, for removing my biggest source of tension around entertaining. There was a time when I suspected that the only reason I entertained so often was because it forced me to clean the bathroom. I was always scrambling to get the house "ready for company", sometimes up to the last minute, which usually involved a lot of yelling at other people and telling them to move their butts. Unless I just did the martyred slow burn. But I've finally figured out that we deserve to live in a house that's company ready. I'm no longer quite the slave to perfection I once was. I've realized that my guests don't care if there is a stray cobweb in the room. If I am at ease, they are at ease and that is the most important gift I can give them.

The Child has no school today so we slept in. Which was lovely but I'd best hasten out to collect provisions for tomorrow. Peacocks are notoriously difficult to catch.