Dinner parties - a thing of the past? or athing of your class?

[SpeckledHen]

My parents had these. TYhey were form,al affairs and my mum went to a lot of troubler. Now I only know of a couple of folk in my neighbourhood who have them. Do any of you still have them and if so what is the format? Have they largely been replaced by BBQs?Are dinner parties, dare I say it, class related?

LoveBeingAMummy I aim intrigued by your dinner parties, dunno why..and the 3 mates who don't see each other very often. You have the material for a decent novel there.

WMMC - All 3 of my kids have been gobblers so no sitting around waiting for them to finish a slice of toast chez SR

ok you lot

tell me what to cook on friday

got four people coming and want to impress without looking like i have tried, natch

was going to make veal stew but can't find pink veal

can't bring myself to use the words dinner party, i say come and have something to eat

will you be eating french style or russian style?

?

am obviously not up to speed here

Something I learned on mn, popped into my head. Is it the french way means serving courses and the russian way means serving bits of this and that all at once? Or the other way around.

Russian service is courses. French service used to be everything at once. According to QI, anyway.

I'd do......

Gazpacho
Grilled lamb with beetroot, walnut, mint and fetta salad. Good bread-sourdough maybe.
Tropical fruit salad [passion fruit and lime being all important addition]

Margeritas or fizz to start with.
Lots of rose too.

That all sounds bloody great frankly Moondog

Dead easy too.

think I could do it all except the bread

have never made bread

the salad sounds especially delicious, loads of my favourite things

have an excess of mint growing too

I have people to dinner rather than give dinner parties.

I normally serve three healthy high fruit-and-vegetable content courses, preceded by champagne and accompanied by a wine that suits the food.

I don't serve bread, or cheese.

Service à la française means that all the dishes for each course are put on the table and people serve themselves. There can be lots of courses.

Oh I wouldn't make the bread.I'd buy it.

Another good one in a big paella which looks after itself.

I do a lot of SE Asian cooking too. Peanut sate always goes down well with good rice and zingy salad dressed with nam pla, lime, chilli, brown sugar and coriander. Beansprouts, radishes, carrots, spring onions.

Or Moroccan style, A lamb and chickpea tagine with preserved lemons. Or chicken kebabs in ras al hanout with flat breads and salad.

Yep, we do, but have changed the name to just spending the evening in with friends.

I make the dessert. DH does the rest.

I pour drinks.