Thursday, February 17, 2011

The Death of Dinner Parties?

TheKitchn just put up a question about the supposed death of the dinner party - but to judge from this blog and all the comments on that post (and on the original article) the dinner party hasn't died, it's just been reimagined.

My dinner party ideal, I will freely admit, involves lots of wine and, if all goes well, an impromptu post-meal dance session.  We got close on Sunday night, although I started dropping off with exhaustion even before we finished eating.

As I said earlier, dinner party prep takes a long time if you have your gameface on.  (That's the non-spontaneous gameface, you know; this differs from the spontaneous gameface.)  I spent a few lunchbreaks pouring over smittenkitchen and TheKitchn and Epicurious and putting together a menu, presented here:

APPETIZERS
- feta salad with sundried tomatoes and kalamata olives (made way too much, oops)
- creamed mushrooms on toast (yummy but very rich)
- chorizo-filled cigars (definitely going to make this again!)
- prawns with cocktail sauce (made by the superduper Alex)

MAINS
- sweet potato and spinach gratin (very rich and sweeter than I expected)
- lamb stew with couscous (delish)

DESSERT
- hazelnut/chocolate truffles (oh em gee hello heaven)
- cheeses from Neal's Yard Dairy (thank God for leftovers)

Nom.  Nom. Nom.  Nom.


What's your feeling on dinner parties?  If you're anti, come on over to mine and I'll convince you otherwise.

1 comment:

  1. Betsy, you just happen to have picked one of the greatest Sesame Street clips ever: I think I remember watching it as a little girl! Not to be a downer but I think it's a shame that the quality of writing at Children's Television Workshop has declined over the years; I guess that was inevitable, especially after Jim Henson died. This excerpt really reflects Sesame Street at its zenith. Cheers. RRH

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