Category

dinner parties

  • How To Cook Fish For A Crowd

    How To Cook Fish For A Crowd

    Our friend Emily (who also happens to be Craig’s awesome manager; she’s in the apron on the right) had us over for dinner the other night and she pulled off something I would never be brave enough to attempt at a dinner party: she cooked us fish. Fish is so tricky and temperamental, I’m nervous…

  • Let’s Bring Back The “Thank You” Note

    Let’s Bring Back The “Thank You” Note

    The worst moment of my 13 year-old life was when my mom pointed to a stack of cardboard cards featuring my name written in glitter and told me that I had to write “thank you” notes for all of my Bar Mitzvah gifts. This was weeks after having been hospitalized for dehydration (my Bar Mitzvah…

  • How To Prep A Dinner Party A Day Ahead

    How To Prep A Dinner Party A Day Ahead

    When I first started cooking, I resented the idea of making food ahead for a dinner party. I wanted my food to be fresh! Cooked in the moment! Assembled minutes before the guests arrive! It’s only recently, though, that I’ve started to see the virtue in prepping the food ahead. One: if you’re making a…

  • Hummingbird Cake

    Hummingbird Cake

    Sometimes it’s nice to choose a theme for a dinner party. It makes it easier to pick an appetizer, a side dish, an entree and a dessert. At last week’s dinner party, the theme was The South (we had three Southerners in attendance) and I served up Rachel Wharton’s Pimento Cheese as an appetizer, the…

  • How To Fry Chicken For A Crowd

    How To Fry Chicken For A Crowd

    When scheming of ways to dazzle your guests at a dinner party, fried chicken is often tossed aside as too difficult to pull off. And for good reason: if you fry chicken the traditional way, where you start it and finish it in a thick layer of hot oil, you can only fry a few…

  • 10 Ways To Fix A Mistake in the Kitchen

    10 Ways To Fix A Mistake in the Kitchen

    [Image via RoboPencil] Everyone makes mistakes in the kitchen. Kim Kardashian got engaged in the kitchen and Justin Bieber fathered a baby in the kitchen. Look: it happens. Some people freak out when a mistake happens: “Oh my God! This is a disaster! I’ll never cook again!” Other people employ a series of tactics to…

  • 10 Things That You’re Doing Wrong Hosting a Dinner Party

    10 Things That You’re Doing Wrong Hosting a Dinner Party

    One of the best things about being a home cook is the opportunity to show off your cooking chops to family, friends and loved ones at a dinner party. Some out there plan dinner parties meticulously; every detail is accounted for, from the crystal that’s to be used for the wine, to the palate cleanser…

  • Mississippi Mud Pie (From The Sky)

    Mississippi Mud Pie (From The Sky)

    It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No it’s me, The Amateur Gourmet, blogging to you live from Delta flight 2243, en route to Atlanta, Georgia. Yes, this is an absolute first for me, my first blog post written from a plane. And I choose, as my subject matter, a dessert that I made back in…

  • The Return of The Nectarine Cake

    The Return of The Nectarine Cake

    The question of the hour, when cooking for David Lebovitz, isn’t “what to make for dinner?” It’s: “What to make for dessert?” The man is a dessert guru; the author of legendary books on chocolate and ice cream and dessert in general. What could I make this man that would impress him? My Twitter followers,…

  • Deviled Eggs, Three Ways

    Deviled Eggs, Three Ways

    There was the lobster salad, a big bag of potato chips and some cookies I’d received in the mail. Was that enough to feed four people? I’d need some kind of appetizer. I didn’t have time to go to the store. What did I have in my refrigerator? Pesto, a jar of cornichons, and Sriracha.…