If you’ve thrown a couple dinner parties you’ve been there. It starts with a nice gathering of four people, then Bill asks if he can bring his new girl Jill and Joanie has two friend’s visiting from Toledo and then your significant other invites the Weatherspoon’s because they were at the coffee shop and all of a sudden your quaint controllable offering to 4 people becomes a circus of 10+.
This is a quick post in defense of hard lines at a dinner party. As a fellow cook, I am giving you full permission to veto any additional patrons. Want to know how a nice bowl of handmade ravioli for four people becomes a pot of average spaghetti or a grocery bill expands from $50 to $200? Unexpected guests.
The most thankless job in a home is a cook who cooks for people that don’t cook. Ask most moms who’ve hosted Thanksgiving for two decades.
IF YOU ARE COOKING YOU ARE ALLOWED TO CONTROL THE GUEST LIST.
Sometime’s it’s fun to make a big stew of something for a crowd and see who shows up but too many guests usually results in a diluted menu or a ton of dishes or lots of stress or a lot of money or all of the above.
Beautiful things happen when you spoil a handful of people, stick to the game plan and execute. You can always tell the free agents picked up on the waiver wire to come by for a drink later.
