I Hosted My First Dinner Party and This Is How It Went

As a first-timer co-hosting a dinner for so many people, I was worried about the large quantities of food (the most people I’ve cooked for is 8), the food actually tasting good, and above all, guests having a great time. A couple of months ago, my friend M told me she wanted to host a big iftar party. The moment she mentioned it, I knew I had to join in on the plan. Now that we were finally back in the same city, we were excited for the chance to share our love of bringing people together over good, authentic food.

Preparations:

We created an invitation on Canva, set a date, and sent out the invite on Partiful to as many people as we could think of in the Boston area. If you haven’t heard of Partiful, it’s a fun app to send invites and interact with guests before the date.

We decided on a cross-cultural menu, highlighting our multi-ethnic Italian, Pakistani, Syrian, and Indian friendship. We sat down a couple of weeks before our party with a notebook and a pen, brainstorming what we thought would be a delicious 3-course meal.

Grocery store runs were split into two separate occasions. The first time, a week before our set date, we bought all the dry ingredients and cutlery. The second time, the morning of our event, we bought all the fresh produce and any last details. We were grateful we had split them up because had we done it all at once, it would’ve taken up at least half a day, and we wouldn’t have had enough time to cook.

We took some posters and calligraphy pens from my younger brother to draw up our menu and welcome sign for the door. We did this thinking of our venue, M’s apartment, and how we could decorate it to create a cozy, elegant ambiance.

Finally, on the day of our dinner party, we set up candles, arranged mini bouquets, made our posters, and set up cutlery and drinks, all while preparing the various dishes. We decided on a buffet-style meal because of limited space and a lack of a large table. Anything can work, no matter what kind of space you have! All you need is faith and perseverance to turn it into a welcoming place for guests.

Piece by piece, it started to come together, from our first grocery store run to lighting the last candle.

Cooking:

Warning: Cooking for more than 6-8 people is extremely time-consuming. If you’re planning on hosting for a big group, give yourself as much time as possible beforehand, taking into account the freshness of ingredients and how much time each dish needs to be refrigerated/marinated/cooked/kept warm.

The night before, M and I marinated the chicken and rolled the samosas. The day of, we made the tiramisù, chopped A TON of fruit and vegetables, made the rice, cooked the chicken, and made all our side dishes. We finished everything at exactly 6:15 pm, the time we told our guests to arrive. We made it!

Our Menu:

Appetizer: Dates, Syrian Ayran, Chicken Samosa*, and Fruit Chat

Main Course: Tandoori Chicken with Spiced Rice*, accompanied by a Fennel Citrus Salad

Dessert: Tiramisù*

*Shoutout to our moms whose recipes we used to make these delicious dishes.

The Actual Party:

Guests started trickling in, arriving with flowers and desserts, expressing how nice the space looked and how good it smelled. All of our planning and preparations became real all at once. We broke our fast, introduced ourselves, and prayed before the main course. It all went by too quickly that I forgot to take pictures until the end (ah!), where I made a plate to share with all of you joining on Substack. One by one, people started to leave, with only a few lingering to have tea and chat late into the night. Before we knew it, M and I were washing dishes and putting away leftovers. We were tired, but our hearts and bellies were full. We deemed our first co-hosted dinner party a SUCCESS!

Thoughts & Reflections:

When I think of the “end goal” and what “success” for me looks like, it’s being able to throw dinner parties like this consistently. I want to be known for making delicious food and making people feel at home. I want to send out an invite and have people’s first reaction be “YES!” I want to share my Italian and Syrian roots through dishes that stay on people’s minds for years to come. I want to create spaces where people don’t want to leave, and so they stay until they have no choice but to say it’s time to go home. I want to be intentional about how one thing tastes with another, sharing what a dish means to me, lighting, table cloths, napkins, cutlery, drinks, guest lists, centerpieces, name tags, everything under the sun that must be taken into consideration when hosting a fun dinner party.

This is what Buono Insieme means to me: sharing the love of good food and human connection over the table. In Italian, Buono Insieme means “good together”. I believe that food tastes better when shared with good company. I feel that that is part of the reason why I’m here on this planet, to unite these two things. Whenever I feel immense joy and am completely submerged in the present moment, I’ve noticed it is when I am eating something marvelous with people I love. I want this joy to be felt by as many people as I can touch, so we can come together over this simple and vital part of life.

Grazie mille and wishing you the best food adventures.

until the next meal,

Nadà

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