I LOVE dinner parties. I even kind of love the stress of making them perfect.

When I sold Pampered Chef, my training consultant told me to expect to have something go wrong at every party. So, I'd wait for that one thing, then I could relax.

My first party? I cut my hand with one of the knives. I laughed, got a bandaid, and said, "Ok. Now it'll be perfect." I look at dinner parties much the same way. Something's gonna burn. I'll run out plates, and someone will have to use the "birthday" plate. Something will go wrong. But, it'll still be perfect.

I usually do the whores-devoures the night before, as well as the dessert. Sometimes, not always possible (for instance, the night before Thanksgiving I got so drunk I could barely get into the car, let alone make a pie).

I let Dave's stepmother make the dessert because she offered and the only thing I bake are doctored up brownie mixes.

Suzi, the proof that there are more obsessed sports fans than yourself link

I love the preparing the menu and going to buy all of the ingredients, but my timing is still off about getting everything to be done at the same time.

This is totally me. Which leads me to wishing I'd paid more attention in chemistry and math!

My solution has been to become the kick-ass soup maker in my group. Famous for it! A dish that begs to be made early, can sometimes be deceptively easy and makes everyone warm and comfy.

Right up my street! I thought of this just this morning, walking out for the first truly chilling day of the season. Yup. My time-o-year, cooking-wise.

I've found for larger dinner parties that I can't go wrong with Cook's Illustrated. My brother still has a subscription and I raid his stash at Thanksgiving and Christmas. Also, I've had very good luck with Cooking Light. One of my best Christmas hams came out of one. Still, I am sj's mom in that I become so snappish cooking everything that anyone who offers to help is likely to get their head bit off. We've started to get a routine down, now, where my brother brings finger foods, the daughter brings a side dish, I'll do the main dish and veggie and a bakery pie. Less stress and still nummy.

It probably doesn't help that Mom's kitchen, or at least the cooking area, is super small and if you are even in there you truly are in her way. When I lived there I found it was less crazy to do last minute Christmas shopping than to try and help. Teacup Guy have talked about taking over the big Christmas Eve thing in a couple of years. I have no idea how Mom will be able to do it when she sells the house in the city and they're living in the beach condo full time, there won't be enough room for everyone. Of course, my family, being typical Rhode Islanders, will likely think it is too far to drive an hour to Worcester for Christmas Eve dinner.

Suzi, the proof that there are more obsessed sports fans than yourself

Yo! That is whack. Though I do know a family who named one child "Hudson" after Tim Hudson and another child "Maddux" after Roger Maddux.

Yo! That is whack. Though I do know a family who named one child "Hudson" after Tim Hudson and another child "Maddux" after Roger Maddux.

At least those are names. ESPN is not a name.

I don't like cooking, but i do like entertaining. My parents had people over a lot and liked getting together with friends. They belonged to what was called "Gourmet Club". Each month they would have a theme dinner and the hosts for that month would pick a menu and assign dishes to each couple. They had lots of fun with it and in ujsing us as guinea pigs--I remember egg drop soup practice, which went horribly wrong. Our house was always a big casual gathering place--people came over for Redskin games every week and my dad would make a big pot of chili.

I, on the other hand, am taking a break from having to cook every day. I made a big thing of green chile enchiladas a few days ago and have been living off that.

I have a love/hate relationship with dinner parties.

vw, thanks for apologizing, and no hard feelings on my account. If you would like me to, I'd be happy to write up something for your assignment.

And now, flickrspam from our trip to the zoo today: Old men in the village square [link]

The place was overrun by rabbits,http://www.flickr.com/photos/zonewombat/262969147/ and this poor guy was in the middle of silflay. He just hunkered down and let the kids pet him. [link]

Unfortunately, I decided to cut the day short after Mallory threw his sippy cup into the coati pen. Last I saw, the coatis were playing rugby with it.