am a pretty lucky gal to have a house conducive to entertaining (except the parking situation) and a big-ass dining room table, so I was more than happy to hostess for my dear friend L's 30th birthday party last Saturday.
The lamb spices
The menu: L brought an awesome Cambodian appetizer (what was it called again?) of spinach leaves that you piled yourself with tiny shrimp, minced ginger, peanuts, toasted coconut, scallions, red onion, diced limes, and some kind of sauce. Her favorite cocktail is my fresh lime vodka gimlet (recipe after the jump) so I made a pitcher, and they went perfectly with the appetizer - a happy coincidence! For dinner we had couscous, vegetable tagine, spiced lamb stew with butternut squash, and a salad of romaine and arugula with toasted pecans, cranberries, and balsamic. I made a frangipane apple galette for dessert with calvados whipped cream.
The spices smelled heavenly simmering in red wine with onion and cinnamon sticks.
Click on over for the cocktail recipe, a few of my entertaining tips, and a bonus napkin fold!
Entertaining tips from Repast:
Cooking for a lot of people is always a bit stressful, but I learned a few things from Mom and experience that make the process smoother:
1. Obviously, make everything you can in advance, but I also make up a master plan for when I'm throwing a party and clip it into the front part of my recipe binder. It has the ingredient list for the grocery store, the menu, associated recipes, and a breakdown of when I'll make each thing (day before, morning of, etc.) so I can check it off and make sure I haven't forgotten anything. I also try not to shop and cook on the same day - I find it exhausting.
2. Presentation is nice, but at the end of the day, people will remember how it tasted over how it looked.
3. I'd like to be the type of person who irons my napkins, but really I'm just not. I'm cool with that.
4. Don't be a martyr - accept help with the dishes if offered, or lead a jaunty after-dinner parade to the kitchen for DIY plate-scraping and dishwasher-loading.
5. If all else fails, order a pizza, send a friend on a beer run, enjoy the company, and get over it. My theory is that a party will never be a failure as long the hostess has a good time!
Fresh Lime Vodka Gimlets:
It's easy with this 1-2-3 formula! But first you'll need super-easy simple syrup, which is just 2 parts sugar heated in 1 part water until it dissolves. I used to never make it because I thought it was hard, but it takes about 30 seconds and the extra keeps about a week in the fridge.
1 part simple syrup
2 parts lime juice
3 parts vodka (or gin for a classic gimlet)
Shake all the ingredients over ice and strain into a chilled martini glass (you can run lime around the rim and dip it in sugar first if you're feeling fancy). Garnish with a lime wedge.
Bonus: Buffet Napkin Fold!
When people are coming over for a buffet this is a great way to minimize delicate plate-balancing operations. First take a cloth napkin and put it on the table so the corner with all the floppy edges points towards you. Then grab the corner of the top layer and fold it up in half, so it points away from you.
Flip the whole thing over and bring the side corners toward the middle, so one overlaps the other. Tuck one into the fold of the other. Flip it over again and insert silverware - voila!
