How to throw a Little Foodie dinner party

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For Project Food Blog Round #3 (woo hoo!), we were challenged to throw a luxury dinner party. Ha. I would love nothing more than to have an adult dinner party. But where would we get all the baby sitters? No matter. This is a food blog about feeding little foodies. Here’s how in 12 easy steps.

1. Plan a menu around finger foods in a cuisine you totally know. Make exotic foods seem somewhat normal, like, say, cheese as an option in sushi rolls. And then maybe they will try it.  Luxury means nothing to a kid. I mean, they will eat candy corn before they touch your food.
2. Invite some kids. And their parents. Then invite some single people, because it’s a good idea to have a ratio of 4 adults to 1 kid. It’s also a good idea to invite different ages of kids, because older kids are way better at entertaining younger kids than any adult. As you can see, I got it backwards.

3. Invite too many people. Because half of them will say they’re coming, but then won’t be able to come, because they have KIDS, and kids are unpredictable. They might all come down with the most horrible pukey virus ever known to man an hour before the party. And then you’ll have to clean up puke instead of going to a party.

4. Cook all day long, running around like a wild woman with no time management skills, make your husband hold the baby, cook during your turn to hold the baby, and tell your daughter to go clean her room. If you’re lucky, she’ll play in there the whole afternoon, but don’t actually expect her to clean anything.
      

5. Get out your finest china.

6. Don’t stress out when everyone shows up more than a half hour late, because they have kids. (see #2). Also DO not clean while you are waiting. You will be happy you didn’t.

7. Serve the kiddies first.


8. Play “pass the kiddies”.
   

9. Don’t worry about the fact that your kid is only eating the rice on the plate. And drinking root beer. It’s a party. And at least it’s the fancy, good kind rice. It’s even sushi rice. Your kid is practically eating sushi. You can brag about it to your friends.

10. Have lots of toys for the kids to play with so the adults can finally eat.

11. Serve cupcakes, and even if the food was bad, the kids will only remember the cupcakes.  11 and a half: Remove wrappers before eating. 

12. Because you are all party animals, expect everyone to stay until at least 7:30. Then they will leave to put the kids in bed. After everyone leaves and you put your kids in bed, ignore the dishes. They will totally be there the next day (and the next). They’re reliable like that.
The Recipes:

• Garlic and Sesame Edamame
• Roasted kabocha: Cut into chunks, salt and EVOO, roast at 350 until soft
• Temaki sushi: I highly recommend CHEESE. Even I like it. SPAM is good too.
• Chicken with sesame seeds from Harumi’s Japanese Home Cooking
• Gyoza
• Fried Cheese Wontons
• Mochi cupcakes (I just made them cupcakes instead of cake) with the best frosting ever. PW is not messing around here. Eat your heart out.