Dinner Parties with Minimal Mess
Plus a Mexican spin on hummus, from Peter Barrett
Hello everyone! Today we’re trying something a little different. First I’m sharing some tips on hosting low-stress dinner parties. Then we’ve got a perfect recipe to kick your next one off thanks to of the deliciously creative culinary journal, . It is a dreamy chronicle of gardening, foraging, fermenting, curing, and cooking that I’d one day like to replicate for myself:
Find Peter’s recipe for Jummus, a hybrid fluffy dip that’s got surprising culinary connections, by scrolling to second half of this newsletter.
Minimal Mess Dinner Parties
After making it through a busy fall, a long winter, and moving (10 minutes away) to a new apartment in between, I’ve decided to double-down on dinner parties. My love language is acts of service, so this has always been my favorite ways to show people I care. But the compulsion is currently stronger than ever — to broaden my recipe repertoire, widen the circle — hoping that a sense of community will counterbalance some of the fracturing that seems to be taking place everywhere else.
For the dinners I’ve been having, I’ve left behind the kind of extreme planning and front-loading that I learned working as a prep cook, because it always turns dinner into a whole-day affair. Currently I want them to be more casual and easy, such that it’s feasible to do them often. And moreover, I want to maximize the comfort of being at home, rather than strive to replicate restaurant-style perfection.
So over the past few months, I’ve been tallying up my most useful tips. I’ll admit that they’re heavily informed by how for 22 years, I never had a dishwasher. In the event that you, too, feel like gathering around the table more often but would like to minimize the stress and mess, I hope you find this useful.
Snacks at the Ready.
I love having bites out when people arrive. If they’re hungry, it lifts the burden of needing to eat right away. But it’s also an easy ways to make everyone feel cared for, which is overall the purpose of this whole venture. Three snacks isn’t a hard and fast rule, but I find it to be the right number for feeling substantial but not overwhelming. Some ideas…
A dip (such as Peter’s Jummus, below) can be made in well advance or picked up from a store. It’s easy to dress up by smearing across a plate or shallow bowl and topping with a drizzle of flavorful oil, a grating of citrus zest, pinches of chili flakes, nuts or seeds, or chopped herbs. My Toasted Walnut and Feta Dip is a favorite, as is my Dill & White Bean Spread and Mushroom Pâté.
Cheese is best plated so that it’s easy and intuitive to eat. So many people don’t know how to properly carve into a wedge of cheese (we’re not all French), so do everyone a favor: pry your firm cheeses into craggy pieces with the tip of a paring knife so that they can be easily picked up. Or if it’s one like Manchego, cut it into thin wedges beforehand. (Spreadable cheeses do of course call for a utensil.)
Easy bites like toasted nuts, olives (rinse them off, coat them in fresh olive oil, and top with a little orange zest and dried chili), or a crunchy snack mix require little advance planning. A plate of dates (I always tear them in half, because I most often have large mejools) can go straight into a bowl, or they can be lightly charred under the broiler, and then dressed with a little olive oil and salt. I recently made Rawaan Alkhatib’s dates drizzled with tahini and honey, pictured above, and they were gone in an instant.
Potato Chips in a fancy bowl always make everyone happy. I love the Cape Cod brand, and something I learned on TikTok is to open the bag from the bottom, and then empty it into your serving bowl — this puts the nice chips, rather than the crumbles, on top. The fancy bowl makes it an intentional act.
Vegetables, when they look nice, can be the first to go. Cucumbers, radishes, endive, celery hearts, gem lettuce cups are my favorites. Sprinkle them with a pinch of flaky salt.
A 1-2-1 Rule
A few years ago for one of our Jarry stories, I got to spend an afternoon with David Tanis as he cooked up a Thanksgiving feast. An observation he made really stuck with me: Sweeping a hand over his substantial Thanksgiving spread, he said, “Most of this stuff, you can just make it, set it out, and leave it there for a few hours. It’s all great at room temperature.” What truth! It’s led to what I think of as a 1-2-1 rule fore menu planning.
One Hot Thing. The challenge of cooking for people isn’t so much following a recipe and making your food taste good as it is having it all be ready at the same time. And for me, nothing creates more chaos that multiple hot dishes. Do yourself a favor and choose just one that requires your focused attention for the final minutes. A recent one we all loved is
’s Bread Dumplings with Mushroom Goulash from her book Classic German Cooking. My Smoky Confit’d Beans with Olives is always a hit, too, as is a cheesy baked pasta, like ’s Baked Ziti (in which you can use vegan sausages or roasted mushrooms for the sausages) or ’s perfect mushroom lasagna.Two Cold or Room Temp Things. These you can take care of before anyone arrives. Maybe they need a garnish of herbs or chopped nuts at the last minute, or a quick toss with dressing. But spare yourself lighting up your stovetop, rifling through cupboards, or even having to use the cutting board. For this category I particularly love “salads that can sit,” like Amy Theilen’s Beet Salad, or my Briny Wild Rice Salad. Others I made recently include Christian Reynoso’s Red Cabbage Salad with Orange Vinaigrette (NYT gift link) and the Creamy Kohlrabi Salad with Radicchio and Poppy Seeds from Joshua McFadden’s Six Seasons.
One Easy Starch. This could be bread contributed by one of your guests, or focaccia baked off in the morning if you enjoy making bread. Or rice scooped from the rice cooker. Or polenta, that’s been passively bubbling away for the past couple hours (see below for more on the polenta).
Make Dessert Finger Food
Maybe you aren’t scarred by decades of not having a dishwasher, but one way to skip an extra round of dishes is to avoid desserts that need to be plated. Instead make them something that guests will only use a napkin for.
Think sturdy snack cakes, cookies of all kinds, fun candies or homemade truffles, seasonal fruit, or a mix of the above. Some of my favorites include Alice Medrich’s Almond Cake (it can be eaten out of hand, especially if you make it in a square pan) and her famous Cocoa Brownies with Browned Butter, as well as
’s Twice-Baked Caramelized Cashew Baklava. I also put my “Old Fashioned” Olive Oil Loaf in this category.“You Get One Glass.”
I’ve joked for years that if I ever write a proper entertaining book, the title will be You Get One Glass, and this is because I find the drinking glasses to be such a buzzkill at the end of the night. There always seems to be a mathematically impossible number of them, scattered over every surface.
In practical terms, I simply think it’s helpful to be conscious of the glassware situation. Set out however many you want to use and then stick with those, giving them a quick wash along the way if necessary. Maybe guests get two drinking glasses, one for a drink and one for water, but I will stand by my belief that just one is possible.
Grab Bag…
Pasta is a pain to make in a dinner party setting, unless it’s a baked pasta. I leave that to professionals.
That said, Project Food is fun to do together. Some friends and I once had a dinner party making hand-pulled noodles. And I’ve always loved a dumpling party, preparing a few fillings in advance and then shaping them all together. You might be a huge mess, but it will be educational and memorable.
My favorite oops-I’m-one-side-short dish: Soft polenta. For 4 servings, boil 5 cups of water in a heavy pot (a Dutch oven is great), then sprinkle in 1 cup polenta while whisking. Turn the heat to very low, simmering as gently as possible, and just leave it there uncovered, whisking every now and then, until it’s time to eat. It needs at least 25 minutes, but becomes more tender and delicious the longer it slowly simmers — up to 3, even 4 hours. Add a little more water as needed to loosen it. Before serving, whisk in a few glugs of olive oil and season the pot with salt, then pour the polenta onto a platter and top with grated hard cheese and plenty of pepper.
In a recent
newsletter, she shared tips for sparking more meaningful conversations, which couldn’t be more applicable here. With new friendships it can be awkward to get the ball rolling, and if the conversation dead-ends, it’s hard to stay excited about keeping up the investment. The gist is to ask feel questions rather than fact ones —ie, “What do you like about your neighborhood?” rather than “Where do you live?” So smart.
Overall, treating your friends and family to your home-cooked food is about expressing your love and appreciation. Do it however you know best.
What are your best dinner party tips?
Guest Recipe: Peter Barrett’s Jummus
Special thanks to of Things on Bread for sharing this!
I love learning the history of different foodways, because that knowledge opens new avenues for inspiration, exploration, and playing in the kitchen. A recent addition of poblanos in my otherwise Italian blend of roasted peppers gave me the idea to try a Mexican twist, flavoring them with lime juice, cumin, coriander, and cilantro rather than vinegar, capers, and parsley. The result was wicked on tacos, and made a phenomenal salsa when blended smooth.
This actually wasn’t some random riffing — Lebanese immigrants had a powerful influence on Mexican cuisine in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The most famous example of this impact is tacos al pastor, which derive directly from shawarma. But there are many other similarities, like the frequent combination of cumin and coriander.
Those experiments led me to this dip. The starting point was refried beans, which I likened to hummus as a legume purée of sorts, but I wanted the lightness of hummus, rather than the density of refried beans. Corn, or in this case hominy, which is nixtamalized corn, was the answer.
Of course you’ll get the most interesting flavor here by cooking the beans and hominy yourself, but this is a forgiving recipe that can also be quickly thrown together from just a few canned goods.
Jummus
Blending in ice cubes helps to give the dip a fluffy texture.
In place of hominy, you can use fresh or canned sweet corn.
Use this dip however you’d use hummus or refried beans — as a dip for flatbread, tortilla chips, or veggies, smeared into sandwiches, and in all your favorite burrito, taco, enchilada, or nacho applications.
The amount of salt you need will depend on how well seasoned your beans are. Don’t be shy as you’re tasting.
LV note: I’m going to drizzle salsa matcha all over this the next time I make it.
Yield 1 scant quart | Prep & cook time 10 minutes
1 ½ cups (250g) cooked and drained pinto beans (rinsed if using canned)
1 ½ cups (250g) drained hominy
⅓ cup (50g) pepitas, toasted
Juice of 1 to 2 limes
2 garlic cloves
½ teaspoon fine sea salt, or to taste
3 ice cubes
Pumpkin seed, avocado, or olive oil, for drizzling
Chipotle powder, ground cumin, lime zest, for garnish
1. In a food processor, combine the beans, hominy, pepitas, juice of the first lime, salt, and ice cubes, and blend everything together thoroughly until smooth, pausing to scrape the sides a few times. It will take 2 to 4 minutes to fully break down the pepitas and ice cubes. Taste for seasoning, adding more salt and lime juice to taste.
2. Smear over a shallow bowl or plate. Drizzle generously with oil and top as you please with the ground spices or herbs.
Thanks for the shout out - I’m glad you found the conversation trick helpful. Also, I am shook by the potato chip revelation!
Set up a drink or bar area away from the kitchen to keep guests out of the way while you cook! Love the 1-2-1 rule!