How not to cater your own party

On Saturday night my husband and I hosted a “party for absolutely no reason at all”.   It wasn’t a birthday or an anniversary, there were no milestones or occasions we just decided to invite our friends round and party. Just because.

The idea was just to get together. Eat, drink, chat, laugh. Just be. I make it sound so simple you probably almost believe me. But if you know me, you know nothing is simple. I’m a neurotic anxious over- planner who had just emerged from under a pile of to do lists.

Luckily my husband knows that I can be slightly anxious about things and so to make the night easier we were going to outsource the catering. This would mean we would have to neither cook nor worrying about cleaning up the whole night – we would literally be free to party. And when I say we I mean me – because Mr Pencil is excellent at partying but crap at cooking and cleaning.

The catering would need to be very casual to match our style and so we decided on a hot dog stand that would make not just hot dogs but some pretty damn awesome tacos. They would even include a vego option. I was honest when I booked with the uber laid back (and very cool) Tom from Woofys and told him that catering was probably going to be cheaper than therapy. It had come down to a choice.

But then things took a bad turn and it had nothing to do with Tom. Mr Pencil told me he thought we needed salads.

“BIG salads”, he said “salads that can serve 40 people”.

“I’ll just make a green salad” I conceded.

“Nah, I think we need a coleslaw to go with hot dogs as well” he said, killing my party spirit with 14 innocuous words

And from there it continued to disintegrate. Starters were talked about and sides and chips and all sorts of things that would create stress for me and food for the party goers.

Every time someone asked what they could bring my anxiety upped a notch, even when I tried to fob them off with “it’s not a dinner party, it’s a party party”.

Clearly other food had to be made so I started compiling lists and lists of lists and lists that listed the lists of lists. I do love a list. I shopped close to Christmas (an activity which in itself I think deserves applause) and I became fixated on desserts. Oh wait, I was always fixated on desserts.

The big night came and I had more lettuce than some small farms, I had cheese that could feed the south of France and I had desserts that could satisfy a Willy Wonka convention. And this is what happened

• No one touched the cheese and biscuits
• The spicy nuts I made tasted like commercial curry powder
• Somebody ate a few olives
• I have enough crackers left to pave my drive way and enough chips to resurface the road
• The hot dogs and tacos were exceptional and people raved about them
• About three tablespoons of cole slaw were eaten
• The green salad tasted like crunchy water
• The salad my friend made was a delicious hit
• The coconut cake I baked tasted like suntan lotion. Only about four people know this because no one else was game enough to try
• The “adult” rocky road I made was way too adult and nobody was adult enough to eat it
• The brownies were ignored
• The fruit was picked at (mainly be me)
• I have more ice creams left over than I bought which seems odd (but maybe that is because I had to tell my husband a slightly less inflated figure to start)

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My husband was in charge of drinks and much as I hate to say it, that side of things went pretty well. It didn’t go well when he sauntered up to me when the hot dogs started coming out and said “I don’t think we need the salads”.

I can guarantee you next time we have another party we will make all the same mistakes again, because when it comes to over catering (and doing it badly) I will never learn.

PS This post is in no way sponsored or endorsed by Woofys but I would strongly recommend them