We're well-known for our dinner parties around here. Justly so, I'd say.
But the ultimate dinner party, one that inspires me, happens once a year about forty-five minutes to the south of us. I'm pitching it around as a story idea because it's so amazing.
For his birthday, our friend Tom prepares and hosts an elaborate dinner party for forty or fifty of his closest friends. He plans dishes up to a year in advance, everything—really, everything—is made from scratch, and he recruits about four or five of his cooking-obsessed friends to work in the kitchen. I've written about being a staff member before (the only drawback is that you don't get to eat as much), so this year I'll point you to Tom's posts about the party. This year was a blow-out; it was the tenth anniversary of the Poubelle Winter Feed, and it was, uh, a significant birthday for Tom. He was also celebrating the arrival of his conversation-starting (but not necessarily safe for work) new painting.
To get a glimpse of the menu, and the planning, start with this post about Gougeres, and use the links at the top to click forward to the other dishes. Want to see more pictures? Use Tom's guide to party pics.
