Goal 21. Host a fancy dinner party

I have wanted to plan and put on a fancy dinner party for a long, long time. However, I have never actually had a reason to do this until this past weekend. Prince Charming and I hosted Thanksgiving: Prairie Edition for Belle, Cogsworth and Jafar. It was a really really fun evening, during which I was fully able to relax and enjoy myself. In fact, I was a little nervous because it didn't seem that hard, even though I had planned a fairly intense menu. So here is how I was able to do that.

1. Make a plan: The week before during my regular menu plan I planned my menu and grocery list. I had been thinking about what I was going to make for a little while, but this is when I really hammered everything out. I like to use a spreadsheet for this (I use Numbers but Google would also work well) and have separate sheets for the menu, the recipes themselves, the grocery list and the timeline.

The Menu contains information such as where the original recipe comes from, who is responsible for the dish and what it is going to be served in. I also included make-ahead hints, but actually only made the pie the night before. Everything else was made the day of.  (Please click on any images to enlarge.)

The Recipes are simply the recipes of items that need one. I like to write out the recipes because then I don't have a whole bunch of recipe books thrown all over my very tiny kitchen. This way all the information is on the computer. And I have been known to stand in the kitchen with a TV show playing and reading my recipe. Although this is time-consuming, I have found it to be well worth it.

The Grocery list is pretty self-explanatory.

The Timeline is the most essential part of this plan. This document tells you what needs to be done exactly when. To develop my timeline I started with the time I wanted to serve dinner and worked backwards so that the turkey would be out of the oven 45 min before dinner was served. I used the instructions on my turkey to tell me how long it would take to cook and plugged it in. I then looked for other items that would take a long time in the oven and added them at appropriate times. I was expecting guests at about 3:00, so I ensured that drinks and appetizers would be ready by that time. I then just slotted the rest of items where there seemed to be holes. I also planned time for me to get properly dressed and for Prince Charming to do a quick last sweep-up before people arrived. This timeline was great because I just sat it in the living room where we were sitting around, kept an eye on the time and did things as the timeline told me to. No worries. Nothing forgotten.

2. Shop ahead of time. While the grocery list is self-explanatory there were a couple decisions I made long in advance to help with ensuring we had everything we needed. First of all I shopped the weekend before Thanksgiving. This ensured that there were plenty of turkey's, cans of cranberry sauce and everything else I wanted. This also gave me plenty of time to thaw my turkey. In fact, it never hit the freezer. I just thawed it all week, so that by Saturday I knew there would be no issue with it still being slightly frozen. It is just important to make sure it sits in a pan with sides so that any juices will be contained. Also, decide not to do any last minute shopping. On the Saturday we realized that we couldn't find the seasoning salt I had bought for the spiced nuts. However a quick online search revealed that seasoning salt had many of the same ingredients as my turkey rub, so I just substituted. Resolve to rely on creativity and flexibility instead of dashing to the store.

3. Plan to clean the house well days before the event and only clean parts of the house guests might look. We cleaned the house well, including vacuuming and dusting on Thursday night and guests arrived on Saturday. No one noticed. We also did a good clean of the bathroom that night and then just simply spot-cleaned on Saturday. Really, no one noticed. As long as things are clean, you can just focus on tidying and "sprucing" on the morning of the event. Also this is a great task for the non-cooks to do. Prince Charming is a fantastic sprucer and can usually make things look better than I would have thought of.

4. Accept help. One of the reasons our table looks so great is that Belle decided to buy some ambience in the form of mini pumpkins and brought over her "fall" themed placemats. They injected colour and theme into the living room and made things feel much more put together. Also Cogsworth made some amazing mashed potatoes and the pumpkin pie, while Jafar kept the drinks and good time flowing, plus performed the important task of stirring the gravy. Without everyone's help the dinner and evening would have never been as good. Seek out help and enjoy letting others show off their abilities as well.

5. Expect to have fun. This is the most important thing for the host/hostess to concentrate on. Expect imperfection and make your peace with it before the day of the party. Something will be weird, but also probably funny. I may be twisted but I am pretty sure the year that Chinese had to be ordered would be a pretty memorable Thanksgiving. And even if you just forget a menu item, or the pie gets chili powder instead of cinnamon there is always next year. I realized early in the week that I didn't have the inclination, time or money into making a beautiful entry tablescape and wreath, or a centrepiece. However I could get out my old green tablecloth (which has a wax stain on the underside) and my black napkins from Canadian Tire and simply iron them. I knew that this would have to be good enough, and maybe next year I will be able to do something more special. I had to accept my current limitations and work within them. And then expect to have fun, despite the lack of perfection, which I did.

I hope that you had a fantastic thanksgiving and maybe you will be willing to try to host a fancy dinner party for the next celebration. It is probably much easier than you think!