A final guide to midweek entertainment.

The dawn of DoubleX inspired me to start a project in which I entertained on Tuesdays, a day I had decided unscientifically was the most inconvenient in the week. For eight months, I doggedly slogged through regular dinner parties , fending off strep throat and fatigue as I spatchcocked game hens and brewed big pots of chili. Though I am a food writer and a former professional cook, I had shied away from entertaining because I have a tendency to overdo it. I dirty too many pans and make too many trips to the grocery store for expensive ingredients. My goal with Tuesday was to see whether I could strip entertaining down to its hospitable essence and stop worrying about all the things that were imperfect about my home, my cooking, and my behavior. There were plenty of Tuesday afternoons that I fantasized about canceling the evening’s dinner and making a date with the pizza delivery guy, but come Wednesday morning, I never regretted having had guests over. (Especially the guests who had helped with the dishes.)

1) The cheap secret of compulsive entertainers: You don’t have to hire baby-sitters.

2) Don’t forget Julia Child’s adage “Never apologize.” Much of this year has been about reducing the line between “company food” and “food” as we eat it from day to day. As much fun as cooking is, it’s important to remember that dinner parties should also be about making a connection with friends, even if the food isn’t that polished. That means that it’s OK to serve your friends a bowl of chili, or a grilled cheese sandwich, or even order out for pizza if everything else is just too much.

3) Chaos is OK. This is the great humbling lesson, of course, of parenthood—not everything can be controlled. If you invite families into your house for dinner, bedtimes will be stretched, toys will be snatched, and popsicles will occasionally make an unholy mess. I learned that it’s more important to check in with our friends over dinner than it is to have a perfectly timed meal, or impeccably sourced organic carrots, or an uncluttered dining room table.

4) Shopping is more than half the battle. Most of my streamlining has come not from cooking differently so much as shopping differently. I’m making a point of shopping from my own refrigerator and freezer, rather than running out to the local co-op for this, the farmer’s market for that, and the butcher for a random third thing. When I am at a good place for meat, I try to pick up a little extra for the freezer, and I stock up on dry goods like nuts and chocolate at Trader Joe’s. I’m also buying wine in slightly bigger quantities so that I don’t have to buy it every time someone comes over. (I still don’t have a cellar though. … That kind of forethought isn’t in me.) And, yes, I am all about the home-delivered groceries in a pinch.

5) Leeks. Leeks are my secret go-to ingredient to add sweetness and body to braised dishes, to add delicious onion undertones to soups, and to be braised as a side-dish when all I have around the house are a couple of sausages for dinner. Leeks might not be your thing , but it is essential to have a few ingredients around which will reliably delight you. (I’d also include delicata squash, bulgur, and chicken thighs in this category.)

6) Invest in oven-to-tableware. Many of the pictures from my blog have been of food cooked in my turquoise Le Creuset covered braising dish. You don’t need to get this particular pan, but I am a huge fan of cookware that can go from stovetop, to oven, to table. Not only is it easier to clean up if you’re not transferring your food from pot to dish to plate, but it also facilitates hard-to-screw-up cooking (that is, braising or its slightly drier cousin moist roasting) where your protein is nestled in with something saucy to keep it from drying out should you fail to finesse the timing. This is what Paula Wolfert’s new cookbook, Mediterranean Clay Pot Cooking, is all about. (Though it should be noted that Paula’s recipes almost always require tracking down an oddball ingredient or cooking implement.)

Tags: cooking, dinner parties, food, hosting, tuesday night dinner party

Sara Dickerman has written about food for Slate, the New York Times Magazine, Food and Wine, Bon Appetit, and Seattle magazine.

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Tuesday Night Dinner Party

A former chef's column on the rewards of low(er)-key entertaining.

DoubleX Staff
|
September 24, 2009

Tuesday Night Dinner Party: Don’t Smoke a Duck

How I learned to stop cooking like a chef.

Sara Dickerman
|
May 15, 2009

Tuesday Night Dinner Party: Turn Frozen Tuna Into a Feast

Add baby carrots and it's a banquet for bikers.

Sara Dickerman
|
August 21, 2009

Life

Tuesday Night Dinner Party: 16 Key Lessons Learned From Slapdash Entertainment

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