Dinner parties!

I love Dinner Parties. When we plan a dinner party, we discuss the menu, usually in the car on the way to the bakery and try and figure out what we will have for our dinner. We each have our specialities, I cook Indian style curries, English food, most of the baked products and almost all the desserts. Christine does Thai style curries, barbeque and pasta dishes. We both love to look at our latest issue of Bon Appetit and see what other ideas we can come up with. In fact I have issues of Bon Appetit from the 80's and all of at least the last ten years.

So, with the menu plan written down and in hand the next step is which dishes to use. What are we going to have with it. We like fusion, but there has to be some compatibility in flavours and in the tast of the people attending. It is definitely easier to feed one or two people than a crowd. Having someone over who has allergies actually makes me feel more excited than someone who can eat anything. I think one of the reasons why I ended up starting the Spelt Bakery was because I so enjoyed the challenge of feeding someone who thought that they were too much trouble with their big list of things they could not eat. While it is a challenge it is one I thrive on.

Christine and I have an e-mail list to send to people who invite us over. I have to say that the first time Christine invited me for dinner, she got my list and accommodated it beautifully. I was so impressed and then I got her list and understood that with her culinary expertise, a list like mine was not that big a deal. In fact she was more like me in that she was able to see a list of "Foods Not For Me!" and create a menu to fit. I have to say that as a baker, marrying a chef is so perfect!