Organizing a modernist dinner party

The seasonal tasting menus in the Alinea cookbook are over 20 courses long. Each dish has a corresponding circle, where the radius indicates the portion size and the left/right relative position indicates the savoury/sweet character. Graceful arcs of pairings are traced out by this process, providing a coherence to the menu.

In developing an achievable menu of only 8 courses, I drew from dishes across each of the four seasonal menus. These were dishes that required minimal specialised devices, exotic ingredients, or excessive work. Selecting a continuous sub-section from one menu would maintain the desired flavour progression, but I couldn't find a suitable section matching my means and abilities.

Having tested each dish, developing a menu was the next step. Going about it methodically, each dish was characterised by flavours, size and workload at the service stage. Spreading out the dishes with a high workload at service would help the pacing of the food. My first modernist dinner party featured both large time gaps without any food, and short flurries of various dishes, which I was trying to avoid. Thinking about the serviceware also started at this point.

Characteristics of the dishes
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Making a order from this table, I grouped the sea-food (1,2), the pork (3,4,6) and the desserts (7,8). This left the lamb as the substantial savoury course, with a high amount of work at service. To break up the pork-fest, and to distribute the low-work dishes (4,6), I put the lamb in at 5th. The overriding concern was the work at service, and this is evident by the oscillation from low to high work dishes.

Menu

The next organisational task was planning the meal preparation. The mise en  place started on the Monday for service on a Sunday afternoon. Only about 2 hours each evening during the week could be dedicated to the prep. Early on, tasks were divided between two people, however this soon fell by the wayside as various issues were encountered and work had to be pushed back. Having already prepared the dishes once before, helped in determining which ingredients were likely shelf-stable enough to be made days before, and which were last minute items. Saturday was alot of work, but by the day of service, there was comparatively little to do, allowing us to enjoy the dinner party and lending it a more relaxed air.

Meal preparation plan - Week
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A countdown of sorts for the day of service was produced, however it wasn't entirely necessary. Most of the work for this day was in collecting garnishes, cooking proteins, and plating. The timing prior to service were only followed as a very rough guide, although the directions from the start of service minimised the mental capacity needed to keep the dishes flowing. This forethought would have been a small blessing if we got thrown into a tizzy by some issue arrising.

    

Mean preparation plan - Day of service
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