Dinner Party Cooking
When I first moved out of the dorms and into my apartment, I suddenly became responsible for feeding myself. That was when I started to learn how to cook. Just a few months after moving in, I decided that it would be kind of neat to throw a dinner party for a bunch of friends I had met in the dorms. One of the reasons for doing so was to have a small reunion at the beginning of the school year. Another reason was to have a housewarming party for me and my roommates. The last reason was to see if I could actually cook for a large group of people.
The whole idea of cooking for a dinner party came from my mom who would cook oodles and oodles of food for my extended family whenever we would gather together for birthday parties or holiday celebrations. My mom had always started cooking in the morning. I tried to start as early as I could (as class would allow), and I spent a few hours over the stove just preparing and cooking everything. I had some help too in making some of the dishes, but the whole process from start to finish required constant attention. I had lots of things being done in parallel.
Eventually, I managed to get everything done not too long after the last few guests showed up. I certainly had a greater appreciation all those years when my mom cooked food for everyone. She used to make many different types of dishes and for a lot more people than I had at my party. That night was a pretty substantial group of people to cook for by myself even with the help I received.
During the later months, my roommates and I would occassionally have smaller groups of people (thereby making the amount of cooking more manageable) plus we had become slightly better in our methods of preparation and cooking. I have always wondered what it would be like to be a chef and work in a restaurant. From what I’ve read and seen, the restaurant industry appears extremely demanding. The night I had my dinner party gave me a small inkling of what it was like to do that.
