held a dinner party as an early birthday thing and it was a smash hit! it was the first one i ever held so i was worried about how my cooking skills (or lack thereof) and hostessing would go down but it was so lovely, i was so pleased!! this was the evening plan:
theme: black and red ♠️♦️
dress code: black/red, as fancy as you're feeling (not a strict code but we love a good theme)
🎲 appetiser: firebug's roulette (chicken skewers i marinated overnight; the name was just to mess with my friends, it wasn't a roulette)
🐞 cocktails: the cassette (coffee liqueur and chocolate) and the ladybug (cherry syrup, vanilla and cherry liqueur)
📼 mains: the pinochle (slow cooked shredded beef ragu with homemade hand-cut pappardelle) and admiral's chrysalis (veggie option; the same thing but with pesto instead of ragu)
🍒 dessert: the ebony way (yes that is a reference to exactly what you think it is; chocolate cake pops served with a cherry on top)
🎴 game: instead of place cards, every plate had a randomly drawn tarot card. your rank would dictate and odd rule you had to abide by for the evening, and if anyone figured out what it is, they'd win points and you'd lose them. plus points for successfully throwing someone off!
i wasn't expecting it to go as good as it did - my cooking skills are teetering on a hope and a prayer as is, but i got lucky! people loved the starters (i had to experiment with whether to air fry them or pan fry them, and in the end i had to tweak the seasoning to get them to be as moist and flavourful in the middle as i wanted) and while the pasta was a little wonky and thicker than it should have been, it was still tasty. the ragu was an absolute highlight. honestly i think it's the best thing i've ever cooked - so rich and wonderful and hgggg. smelled amazing too. the dessert was fairly low effort but the cake pops were moist and tasty, and while i'd come up with the game a little on the fly an hour before people showed up, it ended up being a lot of fun! playlist went down a treat too, which is always a bonus. and some of the outfits people rcoked up in were ???? so cool?? omg.
but yeah, long story short, i had an amazing time!! if anyone's hungering for a good ragu recipe lmk and i'll send you the link 🙏
