Taking the Stress Out of Parties

Getting over feeding each other the cake before the wedding

This past weekend my wife and I hosted my daughter’s wedding shower. It was the first time we were meeting my future son-in-laws family and we had member of my wife’s family flying in as well. Talk about a stressful weekend. The one thing I didn’t want to stress about was the food. Italian food is ideally suited to make-ahead dishes and it does not have to be baked ziti.

I started to cook about three weeks before the shower. I baked the cake layers for the carrot cake. It’s much easier to ice a frozen cake layer than one fresh baked. I wrapped the baked cake layers in plastic and stuck them in the freezer.

The following weekend I had a marathon cooking weekend. I grilled the eggplant on my panini maker and made grilled eggplant lasagna where I substituted the eggplant for the lasagna noodles. I also made chicken parmigiana using chicken tenderloins to give me smaller portion sizes. I froze both of these dishes.

The weekend before the shower I frosted and decorated the frozen carrot cake layers and put it back in the freezer. Once it was frozen I wrapped it in plastic wrap. This technique is used by many bakeries and by your local grocery store.

Two days before the shower I placed the frozen lasagna and chicken parmigiana in the refrigerator to defrost.

The day before the shower I started my last batch of cooking. I made the grilled marinated vegetables and the unbaked fontina sausage melt (recipe in a separate blog) and placed them in the refrigerator.

The first thing I did on the day of the shower was to take the cake out of the freezer to defrost at room temperature.  20 minutes before I expected the first guest to arrive I popped the fontina sausage melt in the toaster oven and grilled the baguette slices. Once the guests started to arrive I baked the eggplant lasagna and chicken parmigiana in the oven. The only real “cooking” I did was grilling the baguette slices for the melt.

My advice on reducing stress at parties:

1.       Make lists detailing what need to be done and on what day.

2.       Always make something that a vegetarian can eat

3.       Prepare as many entrees and desserts ahead of time as possible

4.       Prepare an appetizer so that people can arrive late and not throw off your timing

5.       Never plan on starting your main course for at least 1 hour after you tell people to arrive

6.       If it’s a major event, like a bridal shower, ask a friend to take pictures so you will not be stressed worrying about doing it yourself

7.       Plan on an icebreaker or game to get everyone relaxed. (we played bocce - Italian lawn bowling)

8.       Tell your spouse ahead of time what you want them to do at the party

9.       Focus on having fun instead of on how the food tastes
10.  Keep it simple. A few good dishes is better than many mediocre dishes.

By the way, my daughters shower was a great success. Everyone had fun and ate almost everything I cooked. So much for eating leftovers all week. The best part was spending time with my son-in-law and meeting some of his family.