Hey Amy!

I am really enjoying reading my Esquire’s Handbook for Hosts. It is a wealth of information and really speaks to a different time. I love it! Last night I read about how to serve your meal. Loved it so much I am sharing it today. It’s a good reminder of what we should do on Thursday, or any day of a dinner party.

Excepts from How To Serve:

Act as though you had 10 servants–Your guests know you cooked their dinner, and they’re already impressed with your talent or your courage, as the case may be. So you needn’t keep reminding them of your chef role by hopping up and down, running back and forth between table and kitchen during dinner. There could be no other point in such nerve-wracking antics, for it’s a simple matter to arrange things so that “dinner is served” means for the cook/host as well as for the guests. Plan a menu of minimum courses so that everything can be either on the table or on the sideboard or serving table before you announce dinner, make full use of your chafing dish if it’s necessary to keep on course warm while another has the floor…Use a dressed-up “family style” of service, with food for second helpings left on the table rather than returned to the kitchen after the first time around…Use trays for clearing the table, bringing in the dessert and coffee…and you’ll find that you can play the lord of the manor at the head of the table, undisturbed by kitchen-calls, even if you are the the cook.

I try to always enjoy my meal. You know, the one I just spent days preparing? I think we all could use this gentle reminder not to sacrifice ourselves at the table.

xo–me

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