It’s been all go here in Domestic Executive HQ in the last 24 hours. We’ve been holding our first proper dinner party.  We’ve had people around for meals but this was a bonefide dinner party at which I was playing corporate wife.

MT had invited people he works with and their partners so it required a bit of spit and polish to spruce things up.  Best china and a table cloth.

I’m not really a table cloth person but it was necessary because when I extended the table out to allow us to get 8 people around the table the wood was two different colours as over the years the main table wood has mellowed with aged.

I love entertaining – or rather I like the thought of entertaining.  When it comes down to it when the door closes and the guests disappear I often wonder what happened, did people enjoy themselves and what they must have thought of me spending most of time in the kitchen.  This time I was determined to try a more stress free approach and for once it paid off.

We were more planned than ever and chose a menu that we could prepare most of it in advance.  If you’re interested this is what we ate:

Asparagus salad with egg mayonnaise

home made of course with fresh eggs from our chooks

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Fish and mussels braised in tomatoes, peppers and almonds with green beans and artisan breads

dead easy and very tasty

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MT special trifle

a la Nigella Lawson of course!

There was lots of yummy wine, chocolates etc too.  All in all a veritable feast.

Whilst we worked hard to make the dinner special, I think it was the bassets that the guests were most entertained with.  Fortnum and Mason were definitely out of sorts, their routine was changed and all those people in the house and they weren’t allowed to play led to lots of sulking and squeaking. Fortnum in particular would not settle until he was let out to do his party piece.

Dinner parties may be fun to plan and hold but the worst of it all is the clearing up.  It was the time that I wished my in-laws would pop out of the cupboard since they are sticklers for cleaning up that night and it’s all hands to the decks making clearing up happen in no time.   I’m sorry to let you down Bob and Sheila this was what left this morning!

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