Well, that worked...

...at least from the cooking point of view, it worked. Eating-wise, you'd have to ask other people; I'm not qualified to comment. But behold, I fed eight people and didn't have an absurd amount of food left over at the end; that in itself is a triumph. Achieved, of course, by dint of worrying manically all day over whether I was cooking enough, but hey.

Also, y'know I said how pure I wanted to be with the oxtail recipe? Pfui. I spent all day muddling with it. Spanish no more, and certainly not hidalgo: for lo, I did add potatoes. Also chorizo fresco, and I would've added red peppers only samarcand doesn't like 'em. How weird is that?

Didn't make a starter at all, in the end; they had to be satisfied with bread and olives, dolmades, smoked salmon and cured meats. Which they did seem to be, so that's okay.

The white chocolate torte was also a recipe, and if I make it again, note to self: it needs more butter in the base. But I probably won't. It's one of the drawbacks of being a Curious Cook who doesn't cook that often: I never get to cook everything I want to, even one time round, so I seldom revisit a dish. Which means, of course, that every dinner party is an experiment, and flaws are to be expected, and improvements seldom get a chance to be applied. Maybe I should cook more regularly, for people other than myself. But at the end of last night I practically fell asleep on the sofa, I didn't get up till ten today and the chances of my doing anything useful are diminishing by the moment. God knows how professional chefs do it; cooking for a crowd just knackers me.