A Dinner Party Survival Guide : Go With the Flaw

For better or worse, here’s my definition of a dinner party: A group of people gathered together to eat . . . and a flaw.

I have given countless dinner parties, privately and as part of a catering crew, and even, ever so briefly, as a catering company of one.

For years, I gave dinner parties the way my mother gave dinner parties: a siege of activity and anxiety from which sprang a few tasty morsels, a few burnt fingers, and at least one major catastrophe (I myself ruined my mother’s 45th birthday party by dropping her cake, a cheesecake in a glass pan--on impact, splinters of glass shot into every cubic inch of it).

Sometime in my thirties, after years of banquet work, I finally understood and accepted that even the most complicated, ill-fated dinner party will be over soon enough . . . and meanwhile, those inevitable screw-ups--from bad luck at the grocery store to fallen souffles and adversarial guests--are actually the fun and the texture and the challenge, the most memorable part of an evening.

So when my church’s Ways and Means committee asked me to cook a small fund-raising dinner party, I agreed. I agreed knowing that, no matter how carefully I planned ahead, something, if not many things, would go wrong.

Thus, I embarked upon the necessary mental activity of planning a menu--a seemingly endless series of decisions. As in any kind of creative venture, I had moments of panic--what if I didn’t come up with a good idea?--but I also had complete faith, faith born of countless past dinner parties, that plates of edible, possibly beautiful food would materialize.

This dinner party in particular had challenging parameters. It was a fund-raiser, and while each diner would pay $35, including wine and tip (ha, ha, ha), most of the proceeds should be profit. It was suggested I keep food costs down to $100 (not including wine), which meant I was working with $8.33 worth of ingredients per person.

I wanted five courses, with no chicken, no lasagna. This was a point of pride with me: Anyone who has been a part of my church for any length of time has already consumed enough chicken and lasagna to last several lifetimes.

I browsed through cookbooks, consulted with my cooking gurus, began to experiment on my friends. For appetizers, I tried several onion-and-anchovy tarts called pissaladieres , one with purchased puff pastry, one with the world’s shortest crust. I practiced making risotto in a pressure cooker. I contemplated dessert.

Only the entree truly stumped me. When I asked my various cooking gurus what they would cook for an $8-a-person dinner, they said, chicken, chicken and chicken--although one did suggest a meat-free lasagna. I myself thought of stew--lamb stew--and made a trial batch for a midweek church potluck. Green Jell-O with cabbage and mayonnaise received more praise.

Seeing what’s actually in the markets solves many a menu dilemma. About a week before the scheduled event, I checked out the largest meat counter I know, the one in the San Gabriel 99 Ranch Market. There I found $1.59-a-pound duck legs to braise and $1.79-a-pound boned pork shoulder, which I tied and roasted with fennel.

The duck legs, which never did achieve a true tenderness, weren’t bad, but I doubted their universal appeal. The pork roast itself was juicy and tasty, but the fresh fennel was wrong--it lost its aromatic edge in an extended roasting. Meditating on the pork roast, I had an idea: Why not stuff it? A French cook I know suggested prunes. When I went to buy them, I also found some lovely, tart dried Angeleno plums. Why not?

As the date approached, I began casing my markets, planning my fast, last-minute pass on the given date. I did as much as I could the day before, each task like a little gift to myself, one less thing I wouldn’t have to do tomorrow. I ordered bread, bought fresh roasted decaffeinated coffee. My Italian grocer promised to have baby artichokes in stock for the risotto.

That night, I soaked prunes and dried plums in warm water and balsamic vinegar. I made a leisurely stock for the risotto and threw together a diabolically short crust (20 tablespoons of butter to two cups of flour) for the pissaladiere .

For all my planning, there were still gaps. (Without a few last-minute decisions, what’s the fun?) I set out for the stores not knowing what vegetable I would serve with the meat--or whether those artichokes would really materialize.

I kept food costs low by shopping at a variety of specialty markets. The baby artichokes, for example, were $3 a pound less at a tiny Italian store in Pasadena than they were at the upscale supermarket near my house in L.A. True, I took miles of freeways to the 99 Ranch Market, but there I found lovely fresh string beans to accompany the meat and cardboard trays heaped with beautiful oyster mushrooms to add to the artichoke risotto. Nine pounds of beautiful boneless pork shoulder cost a grand total of $16. This allowed me to splurge on a large can of salt-packed anchovies for $12.

With a brief stint back home--long enough to eat lunch, snooze, cut some roses, pack up half my kitchen--I was at the church by 2:30 in the afternoon. There I sat down and made a list of every chore that needed to be done, from shaping pastry crusts to washing berries, and taped it to the wall.

Not only were there parameters for this dinner, there were handicaps. You gotta love a good handicap; it thickens the plot--and the stew.

Architecturally, I couldn’t have asked for a more distinguished kitchen. This one is in a pine-shaded Greene and Greene home that houses the church offices and meeting rooms. Anything that was truly useful in the kitchen, however, had been carried out long ago; there were a lot of wooden salad forks but no wooden spoons, a melon baller but not a single decent knife, etc.

True, the kitchen housed a beautiful Wolf range. Still, the stove was not my stove, as the kitchen was not my kitchen, and in assembling this dinner, I would truly be feeling my way through the darkness. A certain amount of last-minute improvisation was inevitable. And, to my mind, desirable: Adrenaline is required to pull off a dinner party!

I had help. Lots of help. A friend, Holly, arrived at 3 and we set to work.

Still another cardinal rule about dinner parties is, you will have more interruptions than you ever dreamed of. Your long-lost college roommate will call after a 10-year silence. Your 5-year-old will lose a tooth. Your cat will cough up a hairball. Here at the church, right next to the office, where anybody could wander in, we were obliged to field some of life’s great questions: “Who should we talk to if we want to get married?” “What should we do with these 200 folding chairs?” “Where’s yoga?”

A new pipe organ was being installed in the church’s sanctuary by men from New England, one of whom kept sticking his head in the door to ask, “Got any clam chowder?” The church custodian, a doctoral candidate, stopped by; he was defending his Ph.D. thesis in a week and did a brief defense of it just for Holly and me as we filleted salt-packed anchovies.

Then there were the inevitable technical difficulties. Once the roasts were stuffed, we had trouble tying them. First we couldn’t find string, not at the church or at the closest grocery store, so one of us held the roast in place while the other looped and tied it with unwaxed dental floss. (Hey, it worked.) Then prunes shot out of it like plump, slippery bullets.

“Any clam chowder yet?” asked the organ builder. We cleaned string beans, sliced potatoes for roasting. “Has the secretary gone home?” asked a vendor. Browning roasts fogged the air with grease. “Can you tell me where the singles’ discussion group meets?”

Onion tart crusts turned golden in the oven. Someone ran to the store for napkins. Guests were due in an hour and the sexton, who lived upstairs, decided it was time for him to cook his dinner. On the same Wolf stove.

The guests arrived, had wine, sat down in the dining room. I sent out the pissaladieres uncut on wooden breadboards, so guests could admire how one of the free-form crusts was shaped like Ohio, the other like Oahu. Then I started the pressure cooker risotto with baby artichokes and oyster mushrooms. The timing was perfect: I was depressurizing the pot just as the remains of the pissaladieres came back to the kitchen. So far so good.

One of the hardest things to resist in giving a dinner party is the impulse to keep running around when you should be sitting down with your guests--the energy levels are so different. You’re pumped full of adrenaline and they want to tell some long, complicated tale. On this evening, serving paying guests evoked another emotion in me.

The last time I’d served dinners to paying customers was back when I worked at a members-only country club up north. There was a big social gulf between the members and the staff, a gulf maintained and even cultivated by both sides. On busy nights, the gulf could become adversarial, very us/them: us, the harried kitchen staff, versus them, the paying diners. More than once, I ran back to the walk-in refrigerator, sat on a bucket of dill chips and wept disconsolately until the chef, an enormous 6-foot-4 big-hearted fellow named Doug, came in and made his usual, generous offer: “Want me to go hurt someone?”

Racing around that church kitchen, tense as a bird, I felt that old us/them chasm yawning--us, the full-tilt kitchen staff, and them, the nice, sedentary guests. Only, these guests would never ask the impossible.

So, like every good hostess before me, I combed my hair, put on lipstick, shed my apron and went out to the dining room, where everything was candle-lit and calm and all the attractive, dressed-up, paying folk were doing exactly what they should be doing and having a lovely time.

The pork shoulder belied its previous intractability by falling under the knife into beautiful inch-thick, perfectly round, crusty slices, each with a wide, lovely vein of dark prunes and plums. In a sudden irrational panic that the pork was dry (it wasn’t), I improvised a quick sauce from stock, the drippings and the prunes’ former soaking liquid, and this was one of the pleasures of that night: the sudden appearance of a rich, full-bodied, hitherto unforeseen sauce. The meat went out with lightly steamed, still-crunchy fresh green beans and oven-roasted potatoes.

For dessert, I served a snow-white Italian cream pudding called panna cotta . I made a fluorescent orange sauce from stewed dried apricots, which looked stunning strewn with blueberries and strawberries. With the panna cotta came fragile chocolate meringue cookies and strong decaf coffee.

A month later, we did it again. Thanks to the countless hours donated by volunteers, the church made about $500. Not bad, considering nobody had to eat either chicken or lasagna.

The incontrovertible fact is this: A dinner party doesn’t take place until it takes place. All the planning in the world can’t anticipate all the problems and surprises. It’s always a bit of a nip and tuck, a finesse, a stuffed pork roast tied with dental floss.

PRESSURE COOKER KALE AND POTATO RISOTTO

For years, I swore that the wondrous quality of risotto came from the stirring: 20 minutes of human attention without which risotto was simply not risotto. I have been brought to my knees on this issue, however, because somehow, miraculously, pressure cookers simulate the magic of the human hand--in a fraction of the time, with a fraction of the bother.

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2 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons butter

2 small onions, chopped

2 medium boiling potatoes, unpeeled, cut in 1/2-inch chunks

1 large bunch kale or 2 small bunches, stems removed, leaves chopped

2 cups Arborio rice

1/2 cup white wine

4 1/2 cups stock, heated to boiling

1 cup Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese

Salt, pepper

Italian parsley, chopped

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* In pressure cooker or skillet, heat oil and butter. Add onions, potatoes and kale. Saute over medium-high heat until kale wilts some and onions give off aroma. (Can be prepared ahead to this point and kept tightly covered and refrigerated until 15 to 20 minutes before serving.)

* Add rice to warm potato-kale mixture and stir briefly, until rice turns opaque, about 1 minute. Add wine and stir until evaporated. Add boiling stock, close pressure cooker and bring up to pressure. When pressure regulator weight starts rocking regularly, turn heat to medium and cook 5 minutes. Reduce pressure quickly by running cold water over lid.

* Stir risotto, taste and, if necessary, cook further to desired consistency. Add 3/4 cup Parmigiano-Reggiano. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Garnish with remaining cheese and parsley.

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Makes 12 appetizers, or 6 main-course servings.

Each appetizer serving contains about:

238 calories; 497 mg sodium; 12 mg cholesterol; 7 grams fat; 32 grams carbohydrates; 8 grams protein; 0.50 gram fiber.

PANNA COTTA WITH APRICOT SAUCE AND FRESH BERRIES

Lacking ramekins, I made these panna cotta in coffee cups, unmolding them by setting cups briefly in a pan of warm water. This is an adaptation of a recipe from Richard Sax’s “Classic Home Desserts” (Chapters: $29.95).

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PANNA COTTA

7 cups milk

2 cups heavy whipping cream

3 vanilla beans, split lengthwise, or 1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Zest of 1 lemon

4 envelopes unflavored gelatin

1 cup sugar

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APRICOT SAUCE

1 cup dried apricots

3 cups water

1 tablespoon sugar

Berries

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PANNA COTTA

* In saucepan, combine 6 cups milk, cream, vanilla bean (if using) and lemon zest. (If using vanilla extract, do not add now.) Set pan over medium-high heat, cover and bring just to boil. Remove from heat. Let steep, covered, about 1 hour.

* Sprinkle gelatin over remaining cup milk. Return milk and cream mixture to simmer. Remove from heat and whisk in dissolved gelatin and sugar until smooth. Strain mixture into pitcher or bowl with lip. If using vanilla extract, add now, or scrape vanilla seeds out of bean and stir into cream. Pour into 12 ramekins or other small molds. Chill until set, at least 2 hours. Serve with apricot sauce and fresh berries.

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APRICOT SAUCE * Place apricots and water in saucepan and bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer 20 to 30 minutes until water is reduced by about 1/3. Puree in blender or food processor. Strain. Stir in sugar.

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Makes 12 servings.

Each serving contains about:

311 calories; 87 mg sodium; 66 mg cholesterol; 18 grams fat; 32 grams carbohydrates; 8 grams protein; 0.32 gram fiber.

CHOCOLATE MERINGUE KISSES

With a bit of crunch and an intense hit of chocolate, these kisses are a perfect counterpoint to panna cotta. This is adapted from “James Beard’s American Cookery.”

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3 egg whites

1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar or 1 teaspoon lemon juice

1 cup super-fine sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 cup cocoa

1/3 cup grated bittersweet chocolate

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* Beat egg whites until foamy. Add cream of tartar and beat until fluffy, but not dry. Do not overbeat. Add sugar gradually, several tablespoons at time. Add vanilla when about half sugar has been added. Beat until sugar is dissolved. Add cocoa and grated chocolate.

* Drop from teaspoons onto parchment-lined baking sheets.

* Bake at 275 degrees until kisses are firm and slightly browned, about 20 minutes.

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Makes 3 dozen meringues.

Each meringue contains about:

33 calories; 8 mg sodium; 0 cholesterol; 1 gram fat; 7 grams carbohydrates; 1 gram protein; 0.15 gram fiber.

PORK SHOULDER STUFFED WITH PRUNES AND PLUMS AND VARIATION

This pork shoulder can be stuffed with prunes or a combination of prunes and dried plums. (Prunes are dried plums, but not all dried plums are prunes.) I tried good dried Angeleno plums, which have a nice bright tartness that worked beautifully. I have also included an equally alluring and more savory stuffing made with shiitake mushrooms and shallots. Fresh shiitakes can be found at reasonable prices at some Chinese markets.

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3 cups prunes, pitted, or combination 1 1/2 cups prunes and 1 1/2 cups dried plums

1/4 cup balsamic vinegar

3 (3-pound) boneless pork shoulder roasts

4 large cloves garlic, peeled and crushed

Salt

Freshly ground pepper

Port wine

Stock, optional

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* Place prunes in bowl and cover with lukewarm water. Add balsamic vinegar. Cover and soak 3 hours or overnight.

* Remove strings binding roasts and rub all sides with garlic and salt and pepper to taste. Lay roasts flat and place thick row of soaked prunes down middle. Roll roasts around soaked fruit and tie carefully, neither too tightly nor too loosely. If prunes fall out, stuff back in and tie roast lengthwise to hold inside.

* When all 3 roasts are tied, brown well on all sides over medium-high heat, about 15 minutes. Place roasts in large roasting pan, well apart from each other. If there are extra prunes, arrange around roasts and add small amount of soaking mixture to bottom of pan.

* Roast at 350 degrees. After first 40 minutes, baste every 15 to 20 minutes until meat is done, about 2 1/2 hours. Remove string before serving. Cut into slices.

* To make sauce, degrease roasting pan. Deglaze with wine. Place over medium heat, add stock and stir, scraping to loosen cooked-on bits, adding more stock and/or fruit soaking liquid until there is small amount of dark sauce.

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Makes 22 to 24 servings.

Each serving contains about:

443 calories; 97 mg sodium; 102 mg cholesterol; 33 grams fat; 14 grams carbohydrates; 23 grams protein; 0.46 gram fiber.

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Variation

Shiitake and Shallot Filling

In skillet heat 2 tablespoons olive oil and saute 1/2 pound shiitake mushrooms, sliced; 1/2 pound shallots, sliced; 1 large onion, chopped, and 2 sprigs sage until shallots and onion are tender and fragrant. Stuff pork roasts and roast according to above instructions, scattering 4 cloves garlic and 1 sprig sage in roasting pan.

ONION TART (Pissaladiere)

This onion tart recipe is taken from Lulu Peyraud and Richard Olney’s “Lulu’s Provencal Table” (HarperCollins: 1994). The crusts, formed freehand on a flat baking sheet, have a charming rustic look. Good, salt-packed anchovies are worth the added expense and trouble of cleaning and filleting them. The tart is also superb, as I accidentally discovered, with salt-packed sardines.

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PASTRY

Flour

Salt

1 1/4 cups cold butter, diced

About 1/2 cup cold water

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TOPPING

1/2 cup olive oil

4 pounds onions, sliced thin

2 sprigs thyme

Salt, pepper

20 to 25 salt-packed anchovies, or 40 oil-packed fillets

1/4 pound Nicoise olives

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PASTRY

* Sift 2 cups flour and salt into mixing bowl. Add diced butter. Crumble flour and butter together, lightly and rapidly, picking up portions and rubbing loosely between thumb and fingertips. Do not overwork pastry. Sprinkle with little cold water and, stirring with fork, gather together into 2 balls. Wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate at least 1 hour before rolling out.

* When ready to assemble, flatten 1 ball of pastry with palm of hand on generously floured marble slab or other work surface. Sprinkle over plenty of flour. Roll out about 1/8-inch thick. Roll up on rolling pin and unroll onto large baking sheet. Roll up edges and crimp, either with thumb, dipped repeatedly in flour, or with tines of fork. Repeat with other crust.

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TOPPING

* Warm 2 tablespoons olive oil in large flat earthenware pan or heavy skillet. Add onions, thyme and salt. Cook, covered, over very low heat, stirring occasionally with wooden spoon, 1 hour or more, or until onions are so soft as to form semi-puree. Remove lid and continue to cook until much of liquid has evaporated. Onions must not brown. Season to taste with pepper.

* Spread onion puree evenly over both pastries. Press anchovy fillets into place in simple design of latticework or spokes. Push olives into puree to complete design. Dribble olive oil over surface and bake at 375 degrees until edges of pastry are golden and crisp, about 30 minutes.

Serve hot or tepid, cut into small wedges or squares as appetizer, or in large wedges as first course.

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Makes 16 servings.

Each serving contains about:

306 calories; 603 mg sodium; 43 mg cholesterol; 24 grams fat; 19 grams carbohydrates; 4 grams protein; 0.81 gram fiber.

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Dinnerware on cover and above from Room With a View, Santa Monica