We finally got around to having some of our neighbors over for a long overdue dinner party last night.  This morning I was sitting around in my pajamas reading the news and poking around on my iPad, and came across an article on the Bon Appetit website entitled How to Throw a Stress-Free Dinner Party. I googled the subject and read a few other similar articles, and thought this would be a perfect subject for an article here. Some of the tips I read I thought were valid, and some not so much so. I'll summarize my tips for mitigating stress and let you know how we did preparing for our dinner party last night. 1.) Display a menu so  guests know what to expect. This one is all me as I try to always display a menu, including any specialty drinks or wine pairings as well. It also gives a festive touch to your party. Our score: B+. I'm marking us down because I didn't sit down to do it until about an hour before our guests were due to arrive; I encountered a printer problem, uttered a few obscenities, then left Al to solve the problem while I jumped in the shower. Click here to see our Valentine's Dinner Menu 2.) Make the last course first. Most desserts can be made ahead, so take advantage of that. I made this Raspberry Cheesecake (page 361-362) on Saturday, including the topping, then on the day of the party, all I had to do was assemble it. I love this recipe as it incorporates lemon zest in both the crust and the creamy inside, and the raspberry / lemon combination is one of my personal favorites! Our score: A+. The dessert was delicious, and all I had to do to serve it was to cut it and sprinkle a little Confectioner's sugar on the plate first. Cappaccino and Latte at the touch of a button made after-dinner coffee a snap. The only fail here was we forgot to use the "chocolate spoons" we bought. 3.) Plan ahead.  Simply stated, figure out your theme, decide what you are going to cook, make a shopping list, select the wines you want to serve, and do as much as you can in advance. Our dinner party date just happened to coincide with Valentine's Day, so we had a ready theme (For anyone who knows me, I love cooking with some sort of theme in mind to tie it all together). My advice is to do any decorating well in advance of your party date, so that you can focus only on the food as the date approaches. Decide if you're having a sit down meal or a buffet, make sure you have napkins, and enough plates, serving dishes, etc.  Our score: C+. Our theme was a no-brainer, and I had lots of Valentine decorations from a family Valentine's weekend a few years ago, but we didn't decide on a menu until Friday - just 2 days before the party. I didn't start my decorating until Saturday morning, so the stress was on!  On the positive side, we decorated enough to make it very festive, but still kept it relatively classy. I got lots of complements on the floating candle, fresh orchid, and hearts water arrangement on the dining room table. A few lights, fresh flowers, heart beads adorning the wine bottles and simple silver heart cocktail napkins (left over from our self-catered wedding in our house 14 years ago) completed the theme. I realized I didn't have the right color napkins, so bought some new ones the day before, then had to rush home and wash and iron them. Proper planning ahead would have prevented this stress! 4.) Go with what you know. In other words, hosting a dinner party is not the time to try new dishes, or experiment with different cooking methods; rather it is the time to showcase your specialties. Our score: C-. We made a new appetizer we'd never made before (Smoked Salmon Spread on Petits Toast), a new Horseradish Sauce, my mother-in-law's Carrot Soufflé (page 71), and we cooked the beef tenderloin roast a different way than we usually do. The salmon appetizer, the  Soufflé, and the horseradish sauce were a hit, but frankly, the beef was cooked a little past that perfect rare/medium rare point. We also make 14 individual ramekins of a new Comté/Emmenthaler/Provolone Mac-n-Cheese. We made a prototype a few hours before the party just to test it, and ended up throwing them all in the trash, making a quick dash to the grocery store, and made Twice-Baked Potatoes (page 355) instead. We love to cook new and different dishes all the time, but the point here is to do that at a time other than when you're hosting a dinner party, so that you don't add any unnecessary stress. 5.) Pick a good group. Choose friends who have similar interests, and ideally, who have met before your dinner party. Our score: A+.  We had 6 couples, all neighbors, roughly the same age group. All of these guys are not only our neighbors, but our friends as well. As hosts, this group was stress free! 6.) Cook smart.  Don't drive yourself crazy by serving food that involves to-order cooking, constant stirring, or bringing several dishes to a finish simultaneously just as the meal is to be served. Keep in mind how many dishes you can fit into the oven at once. Our score: Wow, we failed miserably on this one. I am never one to cook things ahead of time, as I like food to be fresh and hot when served. I was rotating dishes in and out of the oven, Al was stressing over how the meat increased in temperature 30 degrees in 30 seconds, the wine reduction had to be made after the meat came out of the oven, and the asparagus needed to go in at the final few minutes. We were fortunate that all our neighbors know each other, and everyone was catching up with each other, and didn't pay much attention to us in the kitchen running around like the proverbial chickens with their heads cut off! 7.) Choose good tunes. No gathering is really a party without some good background music. Ideally, make a playlist. Otherwise, let Pandora do the work for you, by setting a channel, and don't spend another minute thinking about this one. Our score: B+. We tested some different Pandora stations while we were prepping before the party, and selected one we liked. There was a point during the evening where I could hear a pulsating techno beat, and asked Al to switch it to a little Miles Davis. All things considered, good tunes, proper volume. 8.) Dim the lights.  Low light makes us all look (according to one article I read) "prettier, sexier, and more mysterious." Our score: A+. A wood fire in the Living Room, another fire in the Family Room, candles everywhere, lights dimmed, strings of heart lights in the windows and on the plants set a festive mood. Of course, I was lighting the candles when our first guests arrived . . . 9.) Clean as you go.  Don't wait until you've made all the food before cleaning. Pro tip: Start the party with an empty dishwasher. Our score: A+. I am a classic "clean as you go" cook. We actually ran the dishwasher 4 times on the day of the party BEFORE the party, but like pros, started with an empty dishwasher. I'm a pretty messy cook, so I stopped and mopped the floor after all the food prep was done. 10.) Clean up the party mess before you go to bed. This is a tip I suggest, although surprisingly, I didn't read this one anywhere else. Our score: A+. I find that after all the guests leave, it's a perfect time to clean up the aftermath and debrief as you're washing and drying dishes. Other than the 2 wine glasses I knocked over and broke, we excelled on this one. Plus . . . I can't imagine waking up to a pile of dirty dishes - that would be serious stress! 11.) Cook for your audience. If you have a group of people in their 50s, you probably shouldn't serve Jello Shots. It's also important to find out it there are any dietary restrictions, like do you need to cook gluten-free or vegetarian? Our score: B. I had Al check with a few of our guests to make sure they ate red meat, but other than that we just winged it.  12.) If you're serving wine, provide some type of wine glass marker. I didn't see this one on any list either, but I noticed several times last evening someone was trying to find their glass. Our score: We failed this one, but I'm vowing to find something clever before my next event. Summary - Although we used to entertain frequently, it had been awhile since we had people over for dinner other than our (grown) kids and their friends. Our kids eat any and everything, and are laid back about whether we eat at 7 or 9:30. We were a bit out of practice, and subsequently a little stressed because we did everything at the last minute. Now the beauty of this type of get-together though is we were in a safe environment, surrounded by friends who were just happy to get together with other people they know and like. We didn't need to impress anyone. We all had a great time talking, catching up, and laughing over some good wine and tasty food. Hopefully, we'll entertain more in the future, and maybe, just maybe, we'll even pay attention to some of these stress-reducing hints. So get together with a handful of your friends, and cook something!