Party Planning 101

Part of my passion for cooking (and wine) is about enjoying the preparation that goes into it. I love hosting dinner parties, deciding what I am going to cook, going out shopping for the ingredients, preparing everything down to the last detail.

My husband thinks I'm nuts!  He loves to eat - but he doesn't understand the ecstasy I get from the setup and preparation. 

My personal Dinner Party mottos
If I am going to have someone over, I might as well have 10 people over.  Whether its 2 to 20, the preparations are the same, so why not invite more people over - introduce different groups of friends to each other, and the whole party will run smoother, be more fun and no one will notice if you're taking a little extra long putting the finishing touches on your meal. 

Outdo myself and push the limits.  Each party is slightly more "evolved" than the last. Pushing myself is the only way I can develop and learn... and I know I can always do it better!

Put a little bit of myself into every dish.  My self-imposed challenges also take me to try to create some crazy food creation/combination or complicated dish.

When life gives you lemons, make lemon jokes. Sometimes, despite all efforts, it doesn't work out , but that's OK - Just have a good laugh about it!  I recently tried making the most basic American Chocolate Chip cookies for an American friend of mine, and after forgetting the first batch in the oven, the second batch was spaced too close together and I ended up with 1 giant cookie instead.  LOL.  In the end, it doesn't really matter as long as you have a sense of humour about it - and no one laughs harder at me, than I do!

It's only hubris if I fail.  What really keeps me on my toes, in the kitchen, are the simple things:  my biggest challenge, actually, is in succeeding the "basic" recipes, because those are the ones I often seem to mess up!

My insanity doesn't stop there...

Before every dinner party,
- I look up original Napkin origami websites, and pick out some strange folding technique. 
- I set the table with enough dishes and cutlery for the 3 or 4 courses,
- I lay out 1 specific glass for each of the wines I've selected (usually, there would be as many wines and glasses as there are courses), plus the pre-dinner drink glass, the "trou normand", and the after dinner liqueur and lest we forget the coffee cup and saucer. 
- The music is selected according to the mood I want to create. 
- The lighting and the colour scheme also play their roles. 

My dinner party preparations begin 24 hours before the actual dinner.  It helps me to get excited and filled with energy for the party! 

The biggest party I ever hosted was a Christmas party at our house in France.  I personally catered and served and poured for 150 adults and 75 kids.  We were living in France and had just bought a big old house (and no furniture to fill it), so, we filled it with a giant Christmas tree and people.  Christmas parties are not common in France, so, being the only North-American in the village, I tried to make it extra special - Hollywood style.  We a kids "activity room" so the adults could enjoy themselves (kid-free), we had mistletoe over doorways, Bing Crosby and Ella Fitzgerald crooning in the background,  roaring fires in every room... and I got little gifts for each of the 75 kids, personally wrapped and tagged and then had them delivered by Santa (thanks again, my dear father-in-law).   The kids loved it, the parents were happy, and I think, everyone really enjoyed themselves.  The party had something for everyone.

My goal is always to make every guest feel like I took the time to do something special for them.

I really think that the art of hosting is quickly fading away.  Martha Stewart did a good job at reviving it (and this is why I have her as a "party-planning role model".  When in doubt, I always ask myself:  "WWMD?"  (What Would Martha Do?)... and I think that if I ever met her, we would agree that, as with anything in life, the details we put into everything we do are what make the difference between "Good" and "Great".