by K Lochery

Created on: February 02, 2010

Dinner party hosts are meant to be gorgeous, relaxed and happy. How many times have you ever held a dinner party where you are gorgeous, relaxed and happy? In reality, a dinner party means a lot of stress. Firstly there is the menu planning and then the seating arrangements. There’s the shopping of ingredients, cleaning and tidying of the home plus the actual cooking of the food. It’s a nightmare and it makes you wonder how any one ever manages to hold a stress free dinner party! There are three main tips for a stress free dinner party that you should follow in order for your evening to go down a treat.

Tip number one - the most important of all, keep the dinner party as simple as you can make it. Keep the number of guests low and simple - six is perhaps the best number. Four is too intimate, eight can be too many to entertain so six is a good wholesome number for great conversation and to allow for an eclectic mix of personalities. You will also find that six is a good number to cook for, especially if you keep to the simple rule again and prepare food that is simple to make. A cheese soufflé may amuse your guests and show off your culinary skills but in reality, you are never going to make all of them as perfect as they should be and a well cooked lasagne or stew will go down much better than a couple of flat soufflés!

Step number two is of course, forward planning. The more in advance you prepare your menu, guest seating arrangements and invitations, the better you are going to be prepared for hidden surprises. This may include someone being a vegetarian and therefore having enough time to prepare a suitable dish or for someone to turn down your wonderful invitation and for you to get another person to attend in good timing. By planning a couple of weeks in advance, you can get things such as non perishable items in enough time to not have to worry about everything at the last minute and also ensure that you have all of the ingredients that you need rather than realizing that you have forgotten something at the last minute.

Last but not least, plan for some entertainment. Whether this is a CD changer with a mixture of CD’s in it that you can play randomly or a classic film in the background, entertained guests are happy guests. Even something as simple as a board game after dinner can prove to be great fun and the better prepared you are with regards to your entertainment, the better the entire evening or lunch date will be.

As long as you keep everything simple and do not bite off more than you can chew, so to speak, you will find that your dinner party will be a stress free as it can be. After all, the evening is meant for you to be having fun rather than stressing about how everyone else is doing.

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