Notes for next time
May. 17th, 2010 10:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
desperanceYes, Chaz: you do need a copy of the menu for yourself. You need it in the kitchen, pinned up somewhere obvious, to act as a checklist. Then when you're assembling plates you won't forget particular ingredients. (The pear-and-ginger chutney for the terrine, the pecorino romano for the salad...)
Two desserts? Is probably one too many. It's a pity, but there you go.
The blowtorch? Is essential for creme brulee. Find it.
Generically: people en masse eat less than people individually. No, they do. Eight times one portion will feed ten, maybe twelve. (Yes, there was plenty of bread. We barely ate one whole loaf between us, and people still complained of feeling stuffed. Portion control! It's not all about economy...)
Unexpected side-effect: I could spend all weekend cooking and feeding friends and not once did I need even to think that I ought to tidy up and get the vacuum out. Other people's houses! This is undoubtedly the way to entertain...
Shameful revelation: "entertain" is the giveaway word. It's all about me. Even on somebody else's birthday. When I was young, through school and briefly university and on into young-adulthood, I was a keen actor; and the thing I most lamented was that I had no gift of music, I couldn't entertain without the paraphernalia of a theatre about me. Then I started selling stories, and then I learned to cook. I haven't given a thought to treading the boards in twenty years; don't need to. Writing of course is all look-at-me, see-what-I-can-do, and so is my kind of public cooking. For myself, I can just feed myself; if it's just me and a friend, the same, more or less; if it's a party, it has to be a performance. *blushes*
Two desserts? Is probably one too many. It's a pity, but there you go.
The blowtorch? Is essential for creme brulee. Find it.
Generically: people en masse eat less than people individually. No, they do. Eight times one portion will feed ten, maybe twelve. (Yes, there was plenty of bread. We barely ate one whole loaf between us, and people still complained of feeling stuffed. Portion control! It's not all about economy...)
Unexpected side-effect: I could spend all weekend cooking and feeding friends and not once did I need even to think that I ought to tidy up and get the vacuum out. Other people's houses! This is undoubtedly the way to entertain...
Shameful revelation: "entertain" is the giveaway word. It's all about me. Even on somebody else's birthday. When I was young, through school and briefly university and on into young-adulthood, I was a keen actor; and the thing I most lamented was that I had no gift of music, I couldn't entertain without the paraphernalia of a theatre about me. Then I started selling stories, and then I learned to cook. I haven't given a thought to treading the boards in twenty years; don't need to. Writing of course is all look-at-me, see-what-I-can-do, and so is my kind of public cooking. For myself, I can just feed myself; if it's just me and a friend, the same, more or less; if it's a party, it has to be a performance. *blushes*