Emily Post's Great Get-Togethers by Anna Post Page B

dinner, place the bread on bread plates before the meal begins. If you’d like guests to slice their own bread, provide a cutting board and knife, and wrap the bread so that guests don’t hold it with bare hands while cutting.
    Butter is served several ways: Place a stick of room-temperature butter on a small serving dish with a butter knife, or slice a stick of butter and serve the pats on a small plate with a small fork. At a formal meal, pats of butter can be put on bread plates ahead of time along with the bread.
    Bread is also served with olive oil. Its rich flavor is an ideal and healthy alternative to butter. Use only high-quality extra virgin olive oil, and enhance the flavor with garlic, hot peppers, or herbs for variation. Serve the olive oil in a cruet or small dish with a spoon on a saucer, and plan on using bread plates. Guests spoon or pour the olive oil onto their plates, then dip their bread into it.
    DIFFERENT PARTIES, DIFFERENT MENUS
    What to serve when? Here are some basic guidelines:
    Brunch
2 courses, served buffet or family style or plated: a mixture of hot and cold breakfast and lunch dishes
Beverages: juices, hot coffee, and tea; Bloody Marys, mimosas
    Luncheon
2 to 3 courses:
First course: soup, salad, or appetizer
Main course: soup, composed salad, sandwiches, quiches, poached fish or a small-portion balanced plate of protein, vegetable, and starch
Dessert: fruit, cookies, sorbet, fruit tart
Beverages: water, juices, iced or hot tea or coffee, a light wine or Champagne
    Tea
Elegant tea sandwiches: miniature sandwiches of a thin filling on thin bread
Small cookies, scones, pastries, cupcakes, or slices of cake
Beverages: tea and coffee, hot or iced (optional: sherry or Champagne)
    Cocktails
An assortment of appetizers (hot or cold), crudités, cheese and fruit, breads, crackers, dips and chips, olives, nuts
    Dinner—simple
2 courses:
Main course and dessert
Or 3 courses:
Salad, main course, and dessert or first course, main course, and dessert
Beverages: water, wine, milk, beer, coffee, tea
    Dinner—all out!
Up to 6 courses: (hors d’oeuvres, served before the meal)
First course: soup, fruit, shellfish, or small composed plate
Second course: fish (omitted if shellfish is served as a first course)
Third course: main course, usually meat or fowl, vegetables, and starch
Fourth course: salad (may be combined with a cheese course)
Fifth course: cheese and or fruit*
Sixth course: dessert, followed by coffee and cordials
Beverages: water, wine, coffee, cordials
    *Traditionally the cheese course came after dessert; now it’s up to you.
    Food Bling
    W e’re talking luxury food here—caviar, truffles, and fancy chocolates. Sure they’re expensive, but a little goes a long way—and in these instances, less can be more.
    Caviar
    Caviar is the salted roe (eggs) of sturgeon. Caviar has a wonderful briny, nutty, mineral flavor; each little grain literally pops in your mouth. The most celebrated caviars—sevruga, osetra, and beluga (from least to most expensive)—come from the Caspian Sea and are black, grey, or golden in color. Because of overharvesting, however, the fish have become endangered, resulting in periodic bans on the import of Caspian Sea caviar and limits on production. American-produced caviars provide a more ecologically responsible—and much less expensive—alternative. Red caviar is actually salmon roe, and each grain, or berry, is quite large. It’s usually used as a garnish.
    Store caviar on ice in the coldest part of your fridge, but don’t freeze it. It’s best used as soon as possible after opening. Serve it icy cold so the grains don’t collapse. When serving it straight, put it in a glass dish on top of crushed ice or snow. Never put caviar in contact with metal—it will develop a horrible metallic taste. Little spoons made of horn or mother of pearl are made for serving caviar, but a wooden spoon will do in a pinch. Don’t mush up the caviar—it’s very delicate. Lift