How to Host a Dinner Party (11 page)

Peel the celery and julienne. In a small pot, boil the water, vinegar, salt, and sugar. Place in a container with the celery overnight to pickle. Refrigerate.

Slice the beef into six portions.

Heat the fat in a wide pan on medium heat. Add the mole, using a whisk to blend. Add the stock, and whisk until hot and smooth. Reduce the heat to low, add beef slices, and let them reheat in the sauce.

To serve, arrange the potatoes in the bottom of the dish. Top with the beef and pour the sauce over it. Put the pickled celery over the beef and sprinkle with cilantro.

Makes six servings.

Cheek Burgers

All we’re doing here is substituting the braised meat for ground beef in a burger, but it’s a startling substitution. The meat is already cooked. You’re just going to add the finishing touch of crisping it in a pan.

Slice the cheeks (chilled from fridge) in half, lengthwise. This should give you four oddly shaped but roughly patty-size discs that weigh about 4–6 oz. (113–170 g) each. Leave them at room temperature for thirty minutes.

Sprinkle each portion with salt. Heat the oil in a cast-iron pan on medium-high. When the oil sizzles, fry the cheeks on one side, untouched, until a crust forms, about two minutes. Flip and top with cheese. Fry until the cheese melts, about a minute.

Spread ketchup and mustard on the bottom half of the bun. Top with the cheek, pickles, and bun top.

Makes four servings.

B
eing on time is just being late for being early. Attempting to be ready at exactly the moment that our friends arrive is a fool’s plan. Unless you’re Captain America and can execute and improvise with split-second timing, give yourself the slack of thirty extra minutes.

Guests should be on time. A host needs to be early. Half an hour before your guests arrive, you should be showered, dressed, and ready. But that doesn’t mean you’re sitting around doing nothing (though you could and I often do).

This is my negotiable time. You know how we often wish there was an extra half-hour in every day, how there are just one or two tasks that we let slide because when it comes down to the crunch, there just isn’t enough time? Well, that’s what this half-hour is for. If anything went wrong in the kitchen, this is the time to fix it. Those emails or phone calls you ignored all afternoon because you prioritized readiness, because you refused to be distracted at every opportunity? Return them now.

I have a friend, a restaurateur, who goes home before service every night and takes a bath. This is the time for that. Imagine being so well prepared that you could be soaking in the tub before guests arrive. I like to recline on the sofa with a bourbon and, yes, return work emails.

The one thing I’ve found immeasurably helpful is inviting someone, or a couple, to arrive thirty minutes early. A pair of Early Birds has a number of benefits. First, it lights a fire under your bum to be ready. Second, there are now Early Birds if you need them. And sometimes I do. I have, on rare occasion, sent these people out to buy eggs, or asked someone to set the table or stir a sauce while I took a last-minute shower.

But the third and truly great thing that happens when you’ve scheduled guests to arrive during this pocket of time is that you get to ease into the dinner party, rather than diving into the deep end.

A couple of friends arrive, and these are probably your best friends, or maybe it’s someone you haven’t seen in a while. But either way, the Early Birds are people you’re glad to gab with before everyone else gets there, so you can catch up on gossip, or maybe talk about something personal that you don’t want to get into at the table. Pour them a drink and one for yourself.

These thirty minutes are like an airlock between the two acts of a dinner party. This time helps separate the host from the labour of the prep time before the performance of showtime.

Put yourself into the social mood. Place your friend on door duty (but don’t actually use the term “butler” or he or she will get resentful). As the guests arrive, you will want to spend time with each one. As we’ll discuss in the next chapter, this is the critical stage of the evening. The doorbell can interrupt those initial, sometimes delicate moments. Having one of your Early Birds attend to that will allow you to multi-task at an important social juncture.

CHIPS AND GUAC

Nobody says no to a chip. This is a snack that you can be proud of, is simple to prepare, and can be served in moderation so guests don’t fill themselves up.

While good guacamole only takes five minutes, it always impresses, probably because we’re often subjected to such terrible guacamoles: garlicky, brown, flat. Make it fresh, cover it until serving to avoid oxidization, and for Odin’s sake, don’t add garlic. While this seems to be a mainstay of many guacamole recipes, I think that raw garlic makes avocados taste metallic and the whole dish has the vibrancy as an ashtray.

Ripe avocados, like a cab on a rainy night, are notoriously not there when you need them most. Toronto taquería Grand Electric pays extra to get avocados shipped from a warehouse, where they rotate the stock to have ripe ones always available. Shop for avocados a few days before your dinner. If they’re rock hard, place them in a paper bag on the counter. If they’re ripe, store them in the fridge until you’re ready to use them.

Chips

In a large pot, heat oil to 350°F (175°C).

Slice the tortillas into quarters. In batches, fry the tortillas, stirring with slotted spoon to prevent overlapping. When golden, transfer to a stainless steel mixing bowl. Immediately toss with a small squeeze of lime and salt. Ideally, serve these warm, but you can always make them up to a few hours ahead of time.

Guacamole

In a large mixing bowl, combine the onion, jalapeno, and avocado flesh. Use a fork to mash the avocado until pulpy, but not puréed. Add lime juice and salt to taste. Refrigerate with cling wrap pressed into the surface to prevent discolouration.

Serves four.

T
his is what you’ve been training for.

When you open that door, it’s going to be lights, camera, action. For about fifteen minutes, your behaviour will cue everyone else. During prep or dinner you can check your notes. But for this opening act, you need to be off script because there will be people arriving, in need of warm greetings, drinks, and introductions.

They haven’t been labouring over menus. They may not understand the intricacies of why you think they’ll like the other guests. They may not know where the bathroom is. They need direction from you, and they need to know that you’re thinking of them and of their comfort. They need to know it right away, or they will begin to suspect that you do not have their best interests at heart, that the evening ahead may be less than delightful.

So this is when it’s important to show the most confidence. Do you think, on the first day of shooting, Alfred Hitchcock asked his crew, “Where do you think we should put the cameras?”