Timing

A few days ago, I was talking to a friend about cooking Christmas dinner, and the subject of timing came up—specifically, the subject of how to time a dinner party or holiday party so that the dinner was ready when the guests were ready to eat (or vice versa, I suppose). It’s exceedingly frustrating to try to have people over for dinner, only to find that the turkey you have been lovingly roasting all afternoon is done 3 hours before anyone arrives, or that your guests are on their fourth round of cocktails and you’re still in the kitchen, frantically trying to convince the beans to soften, or the onions to brown, or whatever.

In the interest of honesty, I should probably say up front that little of what I’m going to say here is all that useful at Christmas or Thanksgiving. These are feasts that revolve around the big roast beast, and trying to time them is always tricky, especially if—like most of us—you only have one oven. Roasting a whole turkey is never a precise process—depending on the size and shape of the bird, and on whether or not it is stuffed, it can cook faster or slower than you expect. Most cookbooks will tell you that a turkey needs to rest after cooking for up to an hour, and that is a useful buffer should your bird finish sooner than you think. However, if the thing is done really early—like several hours early—you’ve got more of a problem. Should this happen, one possibility is to go ahead and carve the bird; you can then reheat the slices/pieces in the oven after your guests arrive. This also allows you to make gravy ahead of time, come to think of it. You can cook and mash potatoes a few hours before serving, and store them, covered, in a microwave-safe bowl in the fridge; when it’s close to dinner time, stir in the butter, milk, and/or cream and nuke them until hot. That said, because of the relatively rigid nature of the menu at such occasions (which I have ranted on before), you kind of have to reconcile yourself to a significant amount of last-minute activity on such feast days. Pour yourself another drink, and press on. And do not hesitate to press your guests into culinary servitude. At Christmas and Thanksgiving, it’s all hands on deck as far as I’m concerned.

On less formal and less fraught occasions, though, you have more options. When I first started cooking regularly (I was a twenty-something in grad school, for those of you keeping score at home), inviting people over for dinner was an enormous undertaking that took several days of shopping and prep work and which culminated in my sweating profusely in a tiny apartment kitchen, cooking three or four dishes at once. This is what I Hate to Cook Book author Peg Bracken called the "fast samba from pantry to sink,” and it is not fun. It’s satisfying if you complete it successfully, but it’s incredibly stressful. And it typically results in you being too busy and exhausted to actually enjoy spending time with your guests. Of course, depending on the guest list, you may prefer to be squirreled away in the kitchen, but that’s another matter.

Nowadays, I’m significantly more laid back (read: lazier), and am less inclined to be cooking as if my life depended on it. Some of this is due to changes in my palate—I tend to prefer simpler, more straightforward-tasting dishes than I did in my misspent youth. But much of it has to do with age, indolence, and a desire to actually speak with the people I’ve asked over for dinner.

Of course, if you have a large, comfortable kitchen and friends who enjoy cooking (or who enjoy watching you cook), you can address this problem by having them in the room with you while you finish preparing the meal. I have a small kitchen, but I can have people sitting at the table or at the counter, cheering me on as I work my magic for them. This may not sound like a suggestion for timing, but if the gathering is informal (the only kind of gathering that I host) it actually helps, because it makes the cooking part of the event. Obviously, you don’t want to do everything at the last minute, but if you and your guests are drinking wine and chatting while you put things in the oven, or on the stove, you’ve created a cozy, communal atmosphere. And as we know, people love to congregate in the kitchen at parties. You could have pole dancers serving cocktails and hors d’oeuvres in the living room, and 2/3 of your guests will still be loitering in the kitchen. If you reconcile yourself to the inevitable and just bring them in there to begin with—and don’t be shy about putting them to work, either—you can dodge some of the last-minute timing issues. It also helps with getting them to the dinner table, since they can see/hear/smell when dinner is ready.

This isn’t always an option, though. So what else can you do? Well, one possibility is to cook as many things beforehand as possible. One rule that I have imposed on myself in recent years is that when I have people over, only one dish can require last-minute attention. I occasionally make exceptions, but most of the time, I keep it to one. It might be the main course, it might be a side, but if I stick to that rule, then I don’t have to worry about sautéing three different things at once, or trying to roast five things in the same oven. Everything else is prepped and ready to go ahead of time.

And I mean really ahead of time. Like earlier in the week. This isn’t as outlandish as it might sound. Unless it contains seafood, pretty much any soup or stew can be prepared in its entirety several days in advance and reheated. Most people claim (and I agree) that such dishes improve in flavor if made ahead of time, since the flavors have more time to develop; regardless, if you make the soup/stew/gumbo/braised dish a day or two before your guests arrive, all you have to do is reheat it on top of the stove (or in the oven). This means that you are calm, relaxed, and serene when they arrive, especially if you decide to pour yourself a glass of wine beforehand. And should the dish involve seafood, typically all you have to do is add it to the reheated soup/stew/whatever at the end, and cook it for 5 – 10 minutes. Not very taxing.

Pasta needs to be boiled at the last minute, but usually the sauce can be made ahead of time, waiting to be tossed with the pasta. The exception to this would be baked pasta dishes, such as lasagne, which can be completely assembled ahead and kept in the refrigerator until you’re ready to bake them. And you can even freeze them if you promise not to tell Marcella Hazan. Along those same lines, most gratins and similar sorts of casseroles can be prepared in advance and refrigerated for at least a day.

Paradoxically, a lot of the time I find that preparing side dishes is more stressful than preparing main courses. I’m not sure why (and maybe it’s just me), but should you feel the same way, keep in mind that a lot of vegetables can be served cold or at room temperature, especially if you serve them with a vinaigrette. And there’s nothing wrong with serving a simple green salad in lieu of a hot vegetable. Despite my remarks about mashed potatoes above, I’m inclined to agree with Nigella Lawson, who once noted that cooking a meal is less stressful if you take potatoes out of the equation. Starches like rice and couscous are easy to make and do not really suffer much if they cool down a bit before serving (potatoes generally need to be served hot, hence the stress). 

And in the name of all that is holy, DO NOT make a hot first course that needs to be eaten at the table with a knife and fork. Don’t do a first course at all, if you can avoid it. Just set out some olives and/or some cheese and crackers for your guests to munch on while they have a drink, and get on with your life.

The vast majority of desserts can be prepared at least a day before serving; I almost never make dessert the day of the party, and if I do, I typically make it first thing in the morning. Puddings, mousses, custards, jello molds, and other desserts that need to chill and set are obvious candidates for advance preparation. If you enjoy baking and want to serve a cake for dessert, you can easily bake it the previous day without any problems. And if you really want to get a jump on things, you can bake a cake a week ahead of time and freeze it. The freezer is actually the baker’s secret weapon—the vast majority of baked goods (cakes, cookies, brownies, breads) can be frozen, thawed and served without anyone being the wiser. A professional baker might be able to tell, but given that he or she has probably done the same thing, he or she is likely to remain silent on the matter. And what the hell are you doing inviting a professional baker over for dinner in the first place?

For that matter, if you know that baking or dessert prep causes you undue stress, just buy a pie or a cake or some ice cream and call it a day. I promise you that no one is going to complain.

In fact, even those of us who bemoan the lack of civility and manners in modern society can be reasonably certain that unless you serve something that guests actively believe might do them harm, they will not complain. As I told my friend the other day, I would never cook for anyone were I not serenely assured that if they hated the food, they would be far too polite to tell me so. That, and the knowledge that if I completely screw up, we can always order pizza.

Bon Appetìt, y’all.