Do-It-Yourself Dinner Party?

The Christmas festivities are a distant memory, Easter is still a few weeks away and there is nothing registering on the social calendar. Now is a great time to catch up with friends and it doesn’t have to cost much – a good thing as my wallet is still recovering.

We’ve been invited to supper a few times recently – and asked to bring a dish. It’s a great way to keep down costs and share the load, and makes for a really relaxed evening.

Last week, all the guests were asked to bring a Spanish dish. Having a theme does mean you are likely to get complimentary dishes. However, the previous week, our hostess had only specified sweet or savoury to her guests, and ended up with a really interesting array of food and flavours! I quite like that element of risk, but you could be a little more conservative and tell your guests to bring a potato dish or a meat dish or a fruit dish… at least you’d know what you are getting.

The odds are that there’ll be at least one dish that you will really enjoy. But, if you are the hostess, don’t bank on eating the leftovers for lunch the next day. The thing about this kind of do-it-yourself entertaining is that there is never anything left. Some guests seem to think it is OK to ask for the remnants, in a way they just wouldn’t at a posh dinner party. (Sorry.)