Dinner Party Prep

I’m throwing a dinner party next weekend to celebrate the birthday of a friend of mine. The challenge in throwing dinner parties is that I work fairly long hours during the week (I work Saturday mornings too) and need to find the time to purchase all the groceries necessary to serve a meal for 8-12 that is up to my standards.

My blog postings this week will be about planning and executing this dinner party. Hopefully they can help people develop their own sort of outline for throwing parties with food.

My first step in this whole process is to develop a menu that I can confidently prepare and serve to each member of the party. After being inspired by Heat and the descriptions of Italian food, here’s what I came up with. (If guests enjoy these dishes I’ll take pictures and post the recipes online.)

After coming up with my menu I picked out some wines to go with each course that I thought would pair well.

The menu for next Saturday looks like this so far

Appetizer Platter of prosciutto, soppressata, Italian cheeses, figs and melons
R. López de Heredia Viña Tondonia Rioja Rose 1995

Lobster Ravioli with salmon caviar, sweet corn, chives and avocado oil
Jean-Jacques Litaud 2004 Pouilly-Fuissé La Roche Vieilles Vignes

Cavatelli with rock shrimp, garlic, pepper oil, artichoke hearts and orange zest
Karthäuserhof 2005 Riesling Kabinett Mosel-Saar-Ruwer Eitelsbacher Karthäuserhofberg

Porcini crusted chicken legs with truffled polenta and rosemary marinated tomatoes
Canneto 2001 Vino Nobile di Montepulciano Riserva

Cannolis

Chocolate terrine with cherry sauce and mascarpone
Ferreira 1978 Vintage Port

I’m planning on buying my pasta at Raffetto’s, my cheeses and meats at DiPalo’s (imported from Italy) and my chicken and rock shrimp at Citarella. I also want to pick up some of this olive oil mentioned in the Times this past week. It looks like I need to fit all the shopping into Thursday, Friday and a couple of hours on Saturday so that I have enough time to cook. I was able to pick up the wine pairings this past week.

Some links for those who need something to read at their desks:

I know this site is sponsored by American Express, but watching chefs talk about (promote restaurants that have relationships with American Express) is strangely fun.

To follow up with My Alinea links from last week, here’s an article from the Wall Street Journal.

I like bacon and I like mints!

Some tips on buying drinkable wine in stores that don’t specialize in selling drinkable wine.

Congratulations to Momufuku Ssam Bar and their two NYTimes stars. They’re a fun restaurant to root for. Here’s a link to a video from Savory NY

And....For those who might be interest, Japanese Restaurant Week is coming up! Plan accordingly