Big Dinner Coming Up

I had a couple of friends over for dinner this weekend so I could have the opportunity to fine tune some dishes for a big dinner on the June 2nd. These big dinners are fun, but they keep on growing and growing! Also, as this idea of the dinner party evolves, I am constantly having to think of ways to keep the food new and exciting (I can’t serve the same dish at every party.) I also face the challenge of having to scale everything towards a larger audience in addition to producing the number of courses I want in a reasonably timely manner. The difficulty of doing this in a small kitchen is a test of both my cooking skills and my metal capacity for managing space (something that starts to suffer after a fifth course and wine pairing.)

Some challenges I am currently dealing with in terms of the next dinner are:

Seating space—How am I going to fit everybody into my apartment? Will I serve the dinner on a table or will it be the kind of thing where people walk around and munch on small plates? I’m also toying with the idea of having everyone split plates but that might be a bit too intimate.

Food—What should I make? I think I’ve decided that it works to have two raw courses and a short rib/braised meat course. The raw courses can be assembled quickly and obviously don’t require any actual cooking and short ribs can be made a day ahead of time and reheated without affecting the flavor.

Drinks—What am I going to pair with each course? For me the challenge here is not in finding good wine or even in finding wine that will pair nicely but in coming up with some sort of theme for the pairings. Last time we had a wine from different regions for each course without repeating. I might try the same thing this time or I might go for all wines from the same region.

The food and drink planning is like putting together a big puzzle—one that will eventually be cooked and eaten. It’s kind of fun in that way.

Ambiance—I’m never really good at this part. I usually delegate this aspect of the party to one of my friends.

That’s it…I will keep updates going on what will be served and paired. There will be some pictures tomorrow.