I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE hosting dinner parties. The kind of dinner parties where your guests linger over the china, talk, and drink wine until 11:30 at night. I get such satisfaction when my guests talk about how full they are and then dive into a homemade cake, leaving not a crumb behind. I am not an affectionate person and I’m not very good with my words. One way I show my love for someone is to provide a meal where they don’t have to bring anything. All they have to do is come to my house, sit at my table and enjoy a home cooked meal.
I recently hosted my first dinner party in a long time for my golf group. The boys are getting a little easier to manage and my husband was able to take them away for most of the day so I could set the table and start cooking. I will say I was a little rusty because many things went wrong with dinner. The meat was overcooked and I forgot to cut the strings off the roast when I brought it out of the oven. My guests were pulling strings from their forks and mouths. Luckily, they didn’t care. My table, however, was on point.
I have very nice china from my wedding. It’s expensive (I’m not gonna lie). Some may call it pretentious. My grandmother always said, “why wouldn’t you bring out the best pieces of china for the best people in your life?” So that is what I do. I set a magnificent table and I bring my people together to eat and drink. It’s a ton of work but it gives me such satisfaction to be able to do this for someone.
As I mentioned, my china is expensive. But that doesn’t mean EVERYTHING on my table is pricey. Many of the items I’ve either had and change out for different seasons/holidays. Other things I’ve just grabbed from another area of my house. I found this beautiful pearl tablecloth from HomeGoods for $16.99 and it matched perfectly with my china. The gold chargers I’ve had for several years…Michael’s maybe? The green linen napkins were $25 from Michael’s this year and the napkin rings were from Target. I shop at Michael’s a TON. They always have great entertainment decor and I always have coupons.
This eucalyptus garland lays on my fireplace mantle for most of the year. I have two of them (from Michael’s) that I twisted together. I added five eucalyptus stems for a little more fluff. The stems I literally pulled from a vase in my living room. I dug the antlers (Michael’s) out of my Christmas bins and tucked those all around. The gold votives (clearance from Pottery Barn) and pinecones (Michael’s) were also added touches from my Christmas decor.
Menu:
- Herb Roasted Prime Rib (this recipe is delicious and the hardest thing about it is the timing)
- White Wine Parmesan Risotto (on point. That is all.)
- Holiday Brussels Sprouts (these actually took longer than I expected. I had to keep pouring olive oil on them and roasting them to soften them up.)
- Roasted Carrots (very easy and delicious. I made these because some people don’t like mushrooms and some people don’t like Brussels sprouts. I was able to assemble these and put them in the fridge to sit earlier in the day.)
- Garlic Butter Mushrooms
- Yorkshire Pudding
- Caramel Apple Bundt Cake
Yes, I cooked all of it myself.
I served this fall charcuterie tray for everyone to snack on while I was finishing up cooking. I’m going to work on a blog post on how to put it together. It was actually really easy.
Hope you enjoyed my post! Looking forward to throwing more dinner parties now that I’m not pregnant and the kids are getting little older.
~Ashley