How to Host a Dinner Party (8 page)

When eating in restaurants, I defer to the good sense of sommeliers. That’s their job. When eating at home, I defer to the tastes of my friends, who bring most of the wine. But I keep a few things on hand, versatile wines that pair well with groups of flavours. We don’t need to become masters at pairing wine and food, but some basic education can go a long way.

The common mistake people make with wine pairing, promoted by the axiom of white wine with fish, red with meat, is thinking that these basic food elements are natural partners with some wines. The marketers who write the pairing suggestions on wine labels capitalize on that. According to those labels, just about every wine goes great with chicken or fish.

But it’s the flavours and characteristics of the dish — sweet, sour, spicy, bitter, salty, umami — with which we are balancing the wine. Why would we expect the same wine to go as well with chicken Kiev as with jerk chicken? Also, other than a 1960s hotel chef or a first-year culinary student, who is serving chicken Kiev?

I’ve always got a couple bottles of Riesling chilled in the fridge. These off-dry wines will balance well with acidic or spicy foods. Whereas a fiery curry would just demolish the subtleties of a Cabernet Sauvignon, the red wine would go well with the richness of a rare piece of red meat.

A good wine shop has someone on hand who knows the product. If it’s really important to find a wine that pairs well with a particular dish, ask for help. Read newspaper columns by local wine writers, who know what’s in stock where you live. Contact them for advice. People who love wine want other people to love wine and are often eager to share their knowledge.

And we don’t have to drink wine. There are lots of foods that just go better with beer — the briny vitality of oysters or mussels; the heat of pozole; the gummy smoke of a deli sandwich — not to mention that some foods, such as barbecue, just don’t fit with wine, practically or aesthetically. No one feels right gripping a sticky pork rib in one hand and tearing at the flesh while daintily holding a wineglass by the stem in the other.

I would caution against adding a pre-dinner cocktail to the evening. A well-made cocktail demands great care and precision. It’s not the best thing to be doing when you should be paying that attention and care to your guests. If you really like the idea of having a cocktail before dinner, and it’s a very classy prelude that I endorse, stick with punch. You can make it in advance and serve it from a bowl as guests arrive. See the end of Chapter Five for a great recipe.

PTITIM AND CHEESE

In support of my theory that we would rather have simple food with good friends than fancy food with enemies, I present mac and cheese. A well-made macaroni and cheese, by which I mean lots of cheese, should appeal to the comfort food pleasure centres of most North American brains. To jazz it up, and to suggest to your guests that you’ve gone to some extra effort (without actually making any extra effort), replace the macaroni with another type of pasta.

Ptitim, commonly known as Israeli couscous, is not actually couscous, which is made from semolina. Ptitim is wheat pasta in the shape of small balls. Its scoopability makes it ideal for being baked with a cheese sauce.

The appeal of this type of dish is that once it’s assembled, it only needs to be slid into the oven during dinner. I like to serve it with similarly low-maintenance foods, such as sausages or rapini.

Ptitim and Cheese

In a large pot of salted, boiling water, cook the ptitim until soft, but not mushy, about fifteen minutes. Strain. Mix with 1 tbsp. (15 mL) butter. Spread on a baking sheet to cool.

In a sauce pot, gently warm the milk without boiling it.

Melt the remaining butter in a large pot on low heat. To make a roux, add flour and mix with a spatula. The flour and butter will solidify into a ball. Stir it around the pot for a few minutes to let the flour toast a bit. The roux will thicken your sauce. Just remember that it’s equal parts of fat and flour, so if your sauce is too thin, just make another roux with equal amounts of butter and flour.

Add the milk and whisk until there are no clumps. Add the cheese and stir. Add the ptitim, mix thoroughly, season with salt and white pepper to taste, and pour into a baking dish (if you have individual ramekins so that each guest can have his or her own, go for it).

Allow the mixture to cool at room temperature. Cover with cling wrap and refrigerate. The day of the dinner, remove from the fridge. During the meal, heat the oven to 350°F (175°C). Bake, covered, for thirty minutes. Remove the cover and continue baking until the top browns, about thirty minutes, or about twenty minutes if cooking in ramekins.

Serves four.

B
eing a prepared host is not being an obsessive. It’s done out of consideration for our guests. Have you ever been to a party where the host is not ready for you? Of course you have. I had this experience just a couple of days ago. And it’ll happen again and again.

I showed up at the invited time. The hosts said hello, then disappeared into the kitchen, where they spent half an hour assembling bruschetta. We’re talking about tomatoes and basil on toast, a five-minute operation.

I’ve shown up on time to find the hosts peeling potatoes. What were they doing earlier in the day? Having brunch? Taking Junior to soccer practice? Sleeping in? Whatever it was, it was more important than looking after their guests.

As we delve into the domestic chores of shopping, cooking, and cleaning — the real work of a dinner party — remember that all this effort is for someone else’s enjoyment. I would rather have a host who hangs out with me and overcooks a steak than one who spends all night in the kitchen creating the perfect meal. I mean, I’d rather have both. But this is an either/or world.

THE SHOPPING

 
 Make Two Trips

This is why we scheduled a Saturday dinner. For most working people, cooking, cleaning, and getting ready for company within two hours of leaving the office on a Friday is impossible — it’s simply not enough time.

Even if you’ve got a full day to prepare, it may be advantageous to make two separate shopping trips to allow yourself even more time in advance. I understand this seems crazy to a lot of people. It would have been crazy to me when I was a kid. I grew up in a household where my father and I went grocery shopping every Thursday night. But it now seems strange to me that a household could purchase fresh produce only once every seven days unless they are subsisting on cabbage.

To make the most of your time will probably mean two shopping trips. As we saw in the menu and planning stages, we can reduce our stress and workload on the day of the dinner by choosing prep-intensive dishes and preparing them ahead of time — any time you’re braising, brining, stewing, or pickling, do it first. Those items usually make up 90 percent of my shopping. Some items, such as fish and green vegetables, need to be as fresh as possible. But when you’re organized and you’ve already done most of your work, a quick run to buy red snapper and basil is not a huge inconvenience, particularly if, on the day of your dinner, that’s pretty much all you have to do.

Know Your Butcher

It’s become a cliché, but knowing your merchants will pay unexpected dividends. Befriend your grocer, butcher, and fishmonger, and you will receive fresher cuts and rare items.

Unless you are shopping for meats in the Slim Jim aisle at a 7-Eleven, your supplier has specialists. Even in a major supermarket, there are humans with these titles. Every big store has people in charge of its sections.

When you are on a first-name basis, they will tell you the days that specific products arrive so you can get them at their freshest. They will offer you specialty items that they have only in small quantities. If it is a small shop, they will special order items for you, not for profit, but as a favour.

Yes, this is easy for me to say. I live near an area of Toronto known as Kensington Market for a reason. A remnant of the early twentieth century, when Jewish merchants lived downtown, the neighbourhood is still home to dozens of independently owned shops that sell produce, meat, fish, cheese, coffee, and bread, as well as tattoos, vintage clothing, and nutritional supplements.

Obviously I’m not advocating for everyone in North America to move to my ’hood. But wherever you live, there is more than one choice for buying food.

Your city might have a still active market district, such as Jean Talon in Montreal, Chelsea Market in Manhattan, Quincy Market in Boston, or Granville Market in Vancouver. More than likely it has big-chain supermarkets, small neighbourhood grocers, specialty shops, an expensive supermarket in the rich neighbourhood, and perhaps a Chinatown. What I’m saying is, start shopping around — be promiscuous with your food money.

Shopping is an opportunity to practise flexibility. If your menu comes from a cookbook, it may contain out-of-season items that aren’t available, or obscure items that are hard to find. This is something that stymies a lot of novice cooks. I remember cooking for one of the first times and calling my girlfriend’s dad to ask what a shallot was. When I’m reading a magazine like
Art Culinaire
, I understand that the recipes are for chefs only, and that I’m not expected to track down sodium hexametaphosphate.