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THE DINNER PARTY

Be positive.  Know your limitations, and strive to be the life of your own party.  With a little imagination, menu planning and some preparation ahead of time, you will be left feeling relaxed, comfortable and composed, so you can be the charming host/hostess.

Many women really do not like to cook; therefore, they become easily confused by interruptions and thus work slowly.  If this is your situation, you should plan your menu ahead of time, with very few courses.  You should have at least one fabulous dish – the main course or dessert, or both, and the rest of the meal basically simple.

You should have a three course meal with a salad, and if you have help, you can quite naturally, go into other courses.  Five courses for a person working alone can be very awkward to serve and can appear ostentatious.

Think your courses through, all the way from preparation to dining.  Think of how to keep your food hot or cold and what dinner wear and flat wear will be needed.  For instance, if you have fish forks, you may want to serve a fish cocktail.  If you are serving wine, make sure you have the appropriate glasses.

Plan your meals, so you will not be left in a last minute flap, where you have to be making last minute sauces and such like.  No matter how well organized you are, interruptions can make you totally disorganized.  Sometimes, your guests, no matter how well meaning they are, can interrupt you at the last minute without thinking about what they are doing, such as, calling you constantly for all sorts of information, including directions to your house.

When you have decided on a menu, decide on how you are going to execute it.  Decide the steps that will be needed to complete the various sections of the menu ahead of time.  Leave yourself some free time in case of any last minute emergencies, which can crop up unexpectedly from time to time.

Preparing ahead of time

For salads, you can mix dressings or measure ingredients ahead of time.  You can chop, tear, rip; slice, dice, and store in zip lock bags or keep wrapped in a wet towel if they are to be used later on that same day. 

Peel, wash, dice, chop, and slice vegetables such as onions, radish, peppers, celery, carrots, garlic, cabbage, etc. and store them in plastic bags in the refrigerator.  Don’t leave your vegetables standing in water; they will lose their food value and flavor.

Most gravies and sauces can be prepared ahead of time.  They can be reheated later in a double broiler or microwave after adding the flavorings, cream and seasonings.  Measure your ingredients previously, and have them ready to add to the sauce.  Another good idea is to save and put away the drippings from cooked roast, so that when you are ready to make quick gravy, you can use the drippings.  Be careful with such leftovers.  If you are in doubt of freshness – throw them out and make quick brown gravy with butter and flour.

Put your meats out for a couple of hours at room temperature, except fish, shellfish, and poultry, which should be kept in the refrigerator until cooking time.  Prepare your meats by trimming, cutting, rolling, seasoning, marinating, arrange them in the pans, ready to go.

Home made biscuits, and other types of biscuits that are made from scratch, should be kept in the refrigerator until baking time.  If you must slice the bread yourself, you can do so, and wrap it ready for your breadbasket.

Breads, rolls, biscuits that are to be baked, don’t take very long to prepare as these can be bought already made so you can bake them closer to time of the meal.  If you are preparing French bread, you can spread it with garlic butter and bake it in foil.  This can also be done for rolls ready to be cooked.

If frozen, prepare the dessert.  This can be prepared several days in advance.  Chilled ones can be done the night before.  If you make fresh pies in the morning, or the night before, put them in the refrigerator and you can then just pop them in the oven before you start the meat course.