Dinner Party

Recently, I decided to host a dinner in the style of Sunday Night Dinner’s after being inspired by Tamara & Zora’s model. They have a set price to cover the cost of the ingredients that everyone donates along with bringing a bottle of wine to share. I opted for a smaller party of 8 (including myself) rather than Tamara’s 20 because my kitchen and living room are considerably smaller and it was my first time cooking 5 courses on my own for a group that big. The final menu ended up being mostly what I was originally planning:

- Roasted beet & orange salad w/ candied nuts & feta cheese on top of mixed leafy greens
- French onion soup topped with a mixture of pecorino & gruyère cheese
- Sautéed swiss chard with raisins & roasted pine nuts
- Coq au vin
- Dried fruit compote stewed with wine, honey, and water, served with rum flavored whipped cream

My target was $20 a person which I was able to hit after a last minute addition, but then that became a last minute cancellation and it was $23 a person instead. The portions were the right size though because except for the coq au vin (Alton Brown’s recipe) we ended up finishing just about everything. There was a bit left over of the swiss chard dish (Tamara’s recipe) but that was because I didn’t cook it properly. The first time I made it, a year prior, it was amazing, but this time it was still a bit tough and probably needed to cook more. I think I was crowding my saute pan by trying to cook three times the size of the original portion in a pan just slightly bigger than I had before. I’ll have to work on that recipe a bit.

The soup (Alton Brown’s recipe) was a bit on the sweet side and needed a bit more liquid, but overall it was still pretty tasty and a success for my second time making it ever. The beet & orange salad (my own creation) was the overall favorite of the night (according to the anonymous questionnaire forms I passed out) which made me pretty happy so I’ll probably repeat it again sometime in the future. I forgot to add the lemon juice to the fruit compote so it was in need of some acid (which some people said on the comments), but the overall flavor was pretty good. I seasoned it with a bit of cardamom to give it a Middle Eastern or South Asian twist. The rum flavored whipped cream was a last minute idea I had when I was in the grocery store that replaced the store bought ice cream. Ice cream might have been a better accompaniment to the compote, but this way I got to make something instead of just buy it. Well, that was the intention… A few of my guests ended up whipping the cream for me while I got the compote ready to go so many thanks to all of them for lending a hand! Anyhow, I added about 2 teaspoons of 8 year old rum for about a pint or so of cream, but I think I’d go a bit heavier on the rum next time. It was garnished with some powdered cinnamon and served in a martini glass.

The questionnaire had pretty positive remarks in terms of portion size, number of courses, cost & format of the meal so I think I’ll try to keep it the same and just do it again with new recipes. Realistically, it might be hard to keep it to $20 for 5 courses though because I barely made the cut with that budget this time around and there were numerous things that helped keep the cost down this time that might not the next: 1) I was cooking bone in, dark meat chicken which is extremely cheap, 2) I was able to use lots of ingredients I happened to already have, 3) With the exception of the swiss chard, most of the ingredients were available locally in this season so I didn’t have to pay for anything that was shipped from far away. If I decide to incorporate any exotic fruits and vegetables or cook any red meat, seafood, or more exotic meats (bison has been on my list) it will be hard to keep it to $20. Also, if I cook something where I don’t happen to have a lot of the ingredients for already, it will be hard to keep it to $20. I think $25 is probably going to be a bit more realistic without dropping the number of courses to 3 or 4, but my goal is definitely to keep it as reasonable as possible.

For the next couple dinners I think I’ll try a Spanish themed dinner an a Middle Eastern themed dinner at some point. I have a bunch of lamb bones from a dinner at Tamara’s when they roasted a whole lamb so that would probably make a good stock for a dish or two at the Middle Eastern themed dinner. If it goes well and I still want to keep doing this when the weather if nice outside I’ll try a farmer’s market dinner with all the nice summertime produce. Who knows what time will tell though… I might decide I’d rather be on the beach.