Social Cooking Part II – Three Easy Steps to Planning a Social Cooking Dinner Party

Ok…let’s begin where we left off. As I mentioned before, many of us would love to entertain and wish we could host more dinner parties at home, but other priorities get in the way. That's where social cooking comes in. It can spare your budget and bring more fun to your crazy “I-have-no-time”schedule. Besides, being social is a sure way to reduce stress and break up your not-so-fun routine…even if it’s just for an evening!

Step 1 – The Date

Don’t plan too far out. Depending on your schedule, choose a date that is about two weeks out. You want to give guests a sense that this is a no frill, no big deal event. Tell them to leave their Manolo Blahniks at home and just come in their favorite t-shirt. Avoid coinciding with bigger life events like birthdays, graduations and anniversaries.

I prefer to plan casual dinner parties on a Thursday or even Monday. Fridays could be good too. Choose a day where you think your friends might be sitting at home trying to forget about work (or the work week ahead…yikes!) or wanting to break up a stressful (or uneventful!) week. Weekends people tend to have other priorities like movies, shows, other parties or weekend trips. Remember you want to make this as casual, simple and fun as possible.

Step 2 – The Guest List

Start with your closest circle of friends, neighbors and family. Definitely not someone whom you haven’t spoken to in awhile and want to catch up with. This is not the time for that! If you make your dinner parties a regular event, word will spread, more people will ask for invites, and you may eventually even have to cut your guest list.

But to start with, people in your inner circle are the easiest to get a hold of, have flexible schedules, know your kitchen and are normally the most at ease at your home without having to be entertained constantly. Keep it simple at first, or maybe for good, and invite around eight people. Forget about that fancy e-vite, and just follow up a quick email with a phone call to firm up the date, time, menu and tasks. (Yes, tasks – more about that later!)

Step 3 – The Menu…And the Drinks!

Food first – stick with one dish for each of the basic courses: appetizer, salad, meat, starch, veggie, dessert. That’s it. To avoid that awkward “everyone brought an appetizer!” situation, try assigning courses in advance. As the host, you get to do the meat. Your best friend, the appetizer (and please no chips and salsa as the easy out!). Your crazy neighbor, the salad (that way you can’t go wrong and still be able to wave and smile tomorrow). Your most passionate and excitable friend, dessert (this can be a treat!). Your big eater hunk of a friend, the starch. And your vegetarian/vegan friend , the veggie(what else?).

Now for the drinks. For your first party, suggest everyone bring a bottle of wine or some beer. For the non-alcohol drinkers, San Pellegrino or any lightly flavored carbonated water drinks should be perfect! Seattle beverage company DRY Soda makes lightly sweetened sodas in flavors like cucumber, lavender, juniper berry and lemongrass. These types of drinks will pair better with your food and complement your table (and your waistline) better than sugary soft drinks.  For the wine, recommend reds or whites in the $9.99 range. For the beer, I prefer a good local or regional microbrew rather than the King of Beers (or any of his minions: PBR, Rainier, etc.)

Step 4 – Take a Deep Breath

Yes, I did say there were only three, so for now let's digest the first three steps, take notes and field the idea of a casual, social cooking dinner party with eight potential guests.

Next time, we'll get into the particulars of your social cooking event, including those tasks I mentioned...