How to be a good hostess, and enjoy your party!

Panic and doubt can develop when you have guests in the house, so we‘re giving you some planning ideas, some recipes and some tips on how to organise these gatherings, so that having guests for dinner becomes a real pleasure.  

We suggest you organise a buffet style lunch/dinner because, although it is a little more expensive to organise, it allows your guests to choose what they like most and the hosts don’t have to worry about serving different courses, which means that they will enjoy the party a lot more.

The most important thing is to have a good plan of what you are going to do and avoid doing a million different things all at the same time. It is best to prepare four or five perfect dishes rather than to doing too much and getting it wrong. Besides, this isn’t the time for experiments and recipes that you haven’t tried before: you should stick to easy recipes that don’t involve complex recipes that put you in a spin, or that create difficulties for your guests. Also, the more cold dishes you incorporate the easier they will be to prepare and present. After this, you can complete the table with snacks like crisps, peanuts, almonds, olives, pickles, a few fuets (Catalan cured sausage) cut into small pieces… etc.

And for dessert, take advantage of the summer and choose seasonal fruit cut into small pieces and served in small glasses accompanied by melted chocolate or, if you prefer, combine the fruit with some ice cream scoops, or even offer previously prepared slushies and sorbets.

Table presentation

Don’t complicate things for the table presentation. The best way forward is to have a large table on which to place all the elements of the buffet. Place the tableware at the far left: stacked glasses, different sized plates, napkins, and in case anyone needs this, a container with all the different cutlery. Then continue with the dishes of food and, as everything will be served cold, you don’t need to worry about how you distribute these. On a different, smaller table, you could place a large bowl full of ice with the drinks in it, so that they stay chilled.

Pay particular attention to:

• Spicy food, don’t overdo it.
• Allergens, ask your guests if they have any food allergies or intolerances.
• Don’t over-complicate your life with new recipes, this is not the time to innovate.
• Drinks, plan to have available sugar-free drinks, alcohol-free beer, red and white wine definitely, and they should all be very cold.
• Music, make a pleasant selection as background music to be played throughout the lunch or dinner.
  
  

Recipe options: