Simple Entertaining: What We’ve Learned About Dinner Parties

In the olden days, we used to entertain like crazy: oodles of food, flowers, glasses for things we didn’t really drink, including margarita, martini, and pilsner. We crafted adorable hors d’oeuvres, baked our own crackers, whipped our own cream, and pickled our own pickles. By the time our guests arrived we had worn ourselves out in preparations and were, irrationally, annoyed with them for being so difficult. Then in a 2014 preview of 2022’s Great Shedding, we sold our house. We gave most of our stuff away to people starting out or who had managed to reach middle age without specialised glassware. We thought this meant we would never entertain again, and it did to a certain extent. Life events, including an executive-level job and a pandemic meant, that we spent our few free evenings and weekends enjoying each other’s company.

A New Kind of Entertaining

But it turns out we still love having people over. Even more now that we can do it without exhausting ourselves. We’ve learned that simple entertaining is nearly as good as the complicated kind, without nearly so much cleanup. We spent parts of 2014 and 2015 in a tiny flat in Oxford and at a Learned Institute in New Jersey, both places where we wanted to entertain. John’s Mediterranean heritage means that his idea of a party is fifteen elaborate courses, plus snacks. And he has been known to berate guests for not eating and drinking enough. But there we were, stranded without a mandoline or ravioli maker. So recalibration was necessary. But how?

The Learned Institute in particular was very helpful, because we were all staying in identical flats. Every one of us had four forks and four plates and four wineglasses etc., all the same. Also the same furniture, more or less. This meant two things. The first is that nobody could possibly feel snooty about anyone else’s taste. The second is that guests always brought something: one person would be responsible for extra cutlery, another for two chairs. (And they always matched!) The simple fact that we were all in the same boat allowed everyone to take it a bit less seriously.

The Basics

This set of experiences taught us a lot. It is a cliché, but we really did discover that company and attitude matter more than the dishware. Even – although we are shocked to admit it – more than the food. John had his favourite birthday party ever in our tiny Oxford flat: about fifty people drank oodles of prosecco in paper cups and ate a few appetisers. Which we bought from the store. (Nobody noticed.) Also in that flat, inspired by the discovery of real maple syrup, we made ‘American pancakes’ for a group. We ran out of forks, but it all turned out fine.

And so, friends, we recently had a small number of people over to our Oxford home to eat a moderate amount of tasty food. So chilled out were we, ironically, that Laurel burned the salad (which was supposed to be grilled romaine; this sounds awesome but she’s not yet in control of the broiler). John made a last-minute lettuce run and we ate it raw, as god intended.

So what do you need for simple entertaining? It depends a little on where you are located, and it’s worth asking questions if you are not from around here. Also do make sure that your guests will happily eat what you are serving. This includes obvious things like food allergies and preferences, but also less-obvious stuff. Ask if you are planning to be experimental: we once served very spicy Thai food to a Brit, whom we nearly killed.

Some Tips for Simple Entertaining

The basic rule is this: if you are not a college student, imagine that you are, plus add your adult taste and a bit of cash to have other people make the complicated things. For us, this meant scaling everything back, a lot. Here’s what we aim for:

• Nibbles to serve as people are arriving. These used to be canapes and are now nuts and olives.
• A limited selection of beverages: red or white wine, or one kind of beer, depending on your audience’s tastes. We also always have seltzer, and we usually start with prosecco. All this liquid crowds the (small) fridge unimaginably, which requires everything else to be blessedly simple.
• A first course: pick one that can be prepared in advance and sit quietly. Salad is great, especially if you can add something unique (edible flowers, berries, etc.). Laurel’s tip: don’t plan to cook lettuce for the first time, in case it all goes south. Prosciutto and melon is also dead simple, or tomato and mozzarella with basil. Away with quiche and other fiddly things!
• The main course: keep it simple. Everybody likes pasta – which can become a whole meal, starch and protein and veg all in one. Nearly everybody likes salmon (pictured above with a store-bought tapenade, mashed sweet potatoes, and bok choi, and served to general acclaim). Everybody who likes chicken likes a roast chicken, especially if you do something interesting with it (baste with cider, say, or serve with chimichurri). Plus you can roast potatoes and broccoli in the same pan and there’s your balanced plate.
• Dessert: fruit and cheese and perhaps chocolates. In Europe and the U.K., cheese is a final course; pick three with different colours, textures, and flavours. Toss some grapes or dried fruit on the plate and serve with biscuits (=crackers). You’ll notice that nothing here is more effortful than unwrapping.

We’ve learned a lot from having a less-well appointed kitchen for daily life and entertaining! We are done with complicated meals, except when cooking one is our entertainment for the day. We drink wine out of any glass that’s clean. No guest at any of our streamlined dinner parties has ever complained about our cutlery, or left hungry. And we are much better able to enjoy their company when we start preparing a few hours before they arrive, rather than a few days.

Try This at Home

Here are our tips for simple entertaining, even if you live in a house with more than two kinds of glasses.

• Invite a small enough number of people that you can actually talk to them. For us, that’s never more than six for dinner.
• Do everything you can in advance. But also, guests are often happy to help. We have them opening wine, setting the table, arranging flowers, lighting candles…
• Don’t bother cleaning unless things are visibly dirty. If you are worried about this, serve stronger drink.
• Act as though you have fewer dishes than you do: do you really need a separate bread plate?
• Most guests want to have a good time. The less fussy food you serve, the more you can help make sure they do instead of running in and out of the kitchen.

We would love to hear from any other recovering over-entertainers, especially if you have more ideas for simplifying!