Now that the economy has crashed, will in-home dinner parties become more popular?

[Jaxson]

Oh let's hope people slow down and enjoy the really important things in life once again! Nothing says welcome like giving folks who come into your home good food. Maybe there will a resurgent in front porch visiting too.

[spiderbear]

I sure hope so. I do dinner parties at LEAST once a week. More formal ones at least once a month.

I have a friend who brews beer/wine/liquor and some more interesting things like rose wine, his girlfriend is a pastry chef, I'm a banquet chef (former fine dining), and my husband is a bartender. So, maybe us restaurant people just like to get out of the restaurants because we see what all that upcharge really is! Plus being service industry really spoils it for you sometimes, because you know what good service is.

I think it's much nicer to do exotic, themed meals at home. I'm so sick of french food. Our last big "hit" was a Morroccan night- chicken kabobs with yogurt sauce, lemon-cinnamon infused lamb tagine with pickled lemons, basmati rice, olives and dried fruits with flatbread, and baklava for dessert. We even did the campy music and dressed up! I bellydance, so I provided the entertainment and gave lessons, and all in all it was just tons of fun.

I highly recommend the "going all out" method for a successful party.

[Vichel]

Home dinner parties never went out of fashion in this household. Nor with a lot of our friends. It's my favourite way of entertaining. Perhaps it's more common in Australia than in America, although when I lived in Canada we also did a lot of dinner parties at home, as did our friends. We go out to restaurants maybe once a month, sometimes with friends, mostly just our family.

We have a regular 'Dinners for 8' with three other couples. Been doing that for about 4 years now. The host couple does the main meal and the other three couples bring either an appetizer, a side dish/salad, and a dessert. Everyone brings wine/beer too. We rotate so that everyone is a host every fourth time. It makes it a fairly easy & economical way of entertaining and having friends over since you don't have to do all the cooking.

And then there's the barbeque, which we have several times over the 6+ months of summery weather. We either make all the side dishes and salads ourselves or ask others to "bring a plate" (with food on it, not just a bare plate )

[molochai2580]

I've thrown dinner parties for my friends. Of course almost all my friends live more than an hour away and with the economy tanking, they can't afford the drive over anymore. Of course neither can I.

[Redisca]

Actually, I don't think dinner parties are a more affordable way to socialize than going out (unless of course, you only go out to Michelin-starred restaurants). I have dinner parties often, and my impression is that the per-person cost is about the same, or more. The only reason to do it is if you love cooking.

[TexasHorseLady]

Originally Posted by spiderbear

I think it's much nicer to do exotic, themed meals at home. I'm so sick of french food. Our last big "hit" was a Morroccan night- chicken kabobs with yogurt sauce, lemon-cinnamon infused lamb tagine with pickled lemons, basmati rice, olives and dried fruits with flatbread, and baklava for dessert. We even did the campy music and dressed up! I bellydance, so I provided the entertainment and gave lessons, and all in all it was just tons of fun.

Spiderbear, our Meetup does the theme, and Moroccan was one of the hits. (I also bellydance, but I didn't for this particular event - the home where we had it wasn't conducive.)

We've also had Argentinian, Romanian (that one was great, one of our members is from Romania and she and her friends all called their moms for recipes and prepared a fantastic meal, complete with Transylvanian wine), and so forth. It's lots of fun for everybody to research the cuisine of the month and come up with recipes (sometimes with a little help from me) that reflect the country we're highlighting.