It takes a real gastronomic geek to plan their own birthday dinner in which everything is made by hand. It takes a rebel food geek, to make everything from hand for the first time and hope for the best.
The cardinal rule of entertaining, is to already have had experience preparing whatever it is you are going to be serving. I say, invite people who won’t poo-poo your food no matter what you make and have plenty of alcohol on hand. If it’s a good party no one will care, or in fact remember, what was on the menu. And finally, make sure the desert is chocolate. When you are a culinary genius who can whip up soufflés and French fancies without a hitch, then go for the more subtle poached fruit. Otherwise, finishing with chocolate is pretty important.
Apart from the bread and salad, everything on the menu was a first time try for me. Boxed cake mixes are my secret chemical-preservative sin. Everything came out well I think because I have learned how to time my cooking (more or less). I started the day before hand and had a logical plan of food prep. I hadn’t messed around in the kitchen in a while so the cooking was a fun way to spend an otherwise rainy birthday.
Here was my menu:
Ratatouille with Provencal tomato sauce
Crème fraiche to go along with the ratatouille
Crusty bread
Mixed green salad
Devil’s food cake with butter rum frosting
