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AMUSE BOUCHE                 by Chef Chip Desormeaux
/ah-mooz boosh/ def: A small complimentary appetizer offered at fine restaurants. From French, literally, "it entertains the mouth."

Food & Entertaining Tips from The Portable Chef


T he Desormeaux family had a fantastic Thanksgiving, as we do every year. I hope you enjoyed yours just as much!

Every year, as soon as we get everyone's Thanksgiving Dinner orders delivered, we load up the minivan and trek over to Louisiana to spend Thanksgiving with my side of the family. And we always have a blast!

The house is beautifully decorated, the tables are set with the finest china and then everyone starts arriving. Then comes the onslaught of delicious food brought in by every family member. It's quite a sight! Looks something like a Food & Wine magazine article!

As soon as dinner's over everyone heads outside to throw Frisbees and footballs, ride four wheelers and dirt bikes and jump on the trampoline!

It's the time of year where just about everyone is either entertaining or being entertained. This issue of Amuse Bouche is Part Two of a two part series about tips for entertaining. If you missed the first part, you can find it here .

Enjoy!



A Few Must-Know Tips for a Successful Party, Part Two

Happy Holidays, everybody!

In my last issue, I mentioned two tips that are either unknown or just overlooked by most hosts. One was room temperature: set it low, around 68.

The other tip was timeliness of bringing the food out. Don't put all your temperature-sensitive food out until after most of your guests have arrived.

In this issue, I have some more tips for you.

Set the table before you get into preparing the food. If it's a dinner for 10 or 12, set the table complete. Get everything out and looking just right early in the day. The closer it gets to serving time, you'll have less patience to do it right.

If you're serving a buffet, put all the dishes out and put little slips of paper with the food item written on it in each dish. You won't have time to sit and figure out the perfect table arrangement once your guests arrive.

Don't forget good water! For a dinner party, get your water pitcher filled with good filtered water and put it in the back of the fridge with a piece of plastic wrap stretched over the top. When your guests need their water re-filled, you won't want to fuss with your noisy ice maker in the next room.

When we cater a party serving hors d'oeuvres, I like to provide the short quarter-liter water bottles. They're cute, kind of chic, and guests seem to prefer to drink from these than carry a glass around.

Lastly, and I think this is the most important thing, spend the last 30 minutes before your guests arrive to relax and have a glass of wine. Target getting everything done half an hour early. Then go upstairs, turn on some nice music and have a nice glass of wine. In thirty minutes you're going to have to put your party face on and you don't want to be (or look) exhausted.

I hope that was helpful! Next issue, I'll share with you a tried and true checklist for the perfect full bar. I'll also go over how to plan a good menu, whether for a cocktail party or a dinner party.

Bon Appetit!
Chef Chip Desormeaux

But, Wait! There's More!
(Recipes, Nifty Gadgets, & Stuff Like That)

Here are a few fantastic hors d'oeuvres that require a minimum of preparation and a maximum of taste and aesthetics.
Pesto, Tomato & Marinated Fresh Mozzarella
Brie with Apricot Marmalade
Prosciutto & Marinated Sun-Dried Tomatoes on Crème Fraîche

All three of these hors d'oeuvres can be prepared in about 30 minutes' time, even a day before the party. And about 15 minutes of assembly just before your guests arrive is plenty of time to make enough of them to feed 15 or 20 people.

When I develop hors d'oeuvres like these I try to pay attention not only to taste but also textures and presentation. If I can combine a little crunch, a little softness and a little "chewy" all in the same bite, the experience is enhanced far beyond the actual taste.

And if an hors d'oeuvre looks beautiful, the perception is that it will taste good even before it enters the mouth!

Follow this link for the above recipes.
About My Newsletter

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