Project Food Blog Challenge #3, Korean Taco Night: Luxurious has more than one definition.

Challenge Prompt: Celebrate! You've made it this far, and the next challenge is to hold a party for your friends and family (at least four guests, you can include yourself in the 4 person count). Whether you're an experienced host or an entertaining newbie, get creative and host a luxurious dinner party where your guests will discover new tastes and exotic flavors. Share your hosting secrets with readers, like how to cook for a crowd, plan a menu, or involve guests in the prep.

What constitutes a luxurious dinner for your average working parent, stay-at-home-parent, or parent of multiple children I think is extremely different from perhaps what the "food world" thinks is luxurious.  When you're trying to pay a mortgage, educate and raise your children, work your job, and think about the future for your family, you change your definition of luxury.

"Why don't you bring the kids and come over for dinner?"  While Husband was away for an extended business trip recently (4 months straight), I was invited to have dinner at Friend JEL's house, very often.  I think almost every single weekend I would get a phone call from her.  She invited me sincerely and as soon as the words came out of her mouth, I lingered over the words, "Why don't you bring the kids and come over for dinner?" more than the subsequent description about what dishes she'd be making for me.  Her intentions were very clear; she wanted to give me a moment of respite, to treat and pamper me with food and be my extra set of hands.  Her invitation and offer was a simple luxury, one that I could not afford by myself.

In this day and age of Top Chef, 5-star restaurants, how-to-cook shows, and a society that loves to eat out, I think the intention of what goes behind a plate of food is overlooked.  With the rise of luxurious ingredients, like rare mushrooms, foie gras,and kobe beef, sometimes a home cooked meal loses its impact as a very beautiful and wonderful gift, especially in thinking of the intention behind it.  I know that when I plan a dinner party, I think very hard and long about what I want my guests to feel as they are eating my food.  I consider many different factors before deciding on a menu, generally because most of my dinner guests these days have multiple children, lead intense lives, and often are two parent working families.  For these guests, I have a very specific list of intentions that I want to overflow off the plate along with the food.  I want my guests, from adult to children, to feel taken care of, nurtured and satisfied through my plate of food.  I want the adults to have the luxury of a break, a chance to enjoy food and relax as they eat.  These are the luxuries I want to offer my guests, both young and old.

For this dinner party challenge, I invited five entire families for dinner.  Within this group there are several allergies (dairy, egg, shellfish, nuts, peanuts) and I wanted to create a menu that would work around those allergies.  I decided on a Korean fusion type menu because there would be a range of items for both the adults and the children to eat.   By using Korean marinated beef and chicken as the base around which the meal would revolve, the children would have something satisfying to eat and the rest was about having a bit of fun.  How about taking those regular flavors and putting them in a taco?  Korean tacos! I also knew that this group would enjoy experimenting and having some fun with the flavors of  Kimchee Quesadilas as well.   (As a note, I offered the Korean Tacos to quite a few kids who ended up eating quite a few.  A dinner to satisfy all generations it seems.)

Menu

Appetizer

Kimchee Quesadillas (recipe)

Sauteed kimchee, pork belly, ginger and garlic in flour tortillas

Guacamole (recipe)

Main Course

Korean Tacos (recipe)

Korean Barbecued Chicken (recipe) and Beef, Ginger Slaw, Cucumber Cilantro Salad, Chili Sesame Salsa

Seaweed Soup (recipe)

Dessert

Everything Cookies (recipe)

Coconut Mochi Cake (recipe)

Cold Barley Tea, Iced Coffee (recipe), Hot Coffee

On the flip side of all the mental planning is always the physical work involved in throwing a dinner party.  This dinner party was also falling on one of the busier weeks of my life, on the busiest day of the week, leading into the busiest weekend.  It also fell on one of Husband's traveling weeks which meant that I would be handling this dinner party alone. When I glanced at my weekly planner, I knew that I was going to have to be very smart and clever in how I used whatever free time I had.  I deliberately divided the work up into small workable sets because most days I would only have at most 1 hour to do some sort of dinner preparation.  This is how I broke down my tasks.

3 days before dinner
Make cookie dough.  Wrap it in plastic wrap, place in a ziploc bag and refrigerate until needed.
Make ice coffee cubes.  One tray is enough for the coffee, but two is better.

 

2 days before dinner
All major grocery shopping is done, especially for the meat, as it will need to be marinated the next day.
Chop all garlic, ginger, and onion.  Place in storage containers and refrigerate until needed.

1 day before dinner
Marinate all the meat. Store in plastic containers in the refrigerator.  (if you are short space, ziploc bags work just as well.)
Prepare Kimchee Quesadilla filling.
Make seaweed soup.
Make barley tea.
Make coffee.

Day of dinner
Bake mochi cake.
Bake cookies.
Chop all vegetables.
Make sauces.
Make ice coffee.
Barbecue chicken and flank steak (as Husband was traveling, I had some help in this area from one of the guests.)

The easiest way to summarize the dinner is through this index and photos. 

Harper's Index: Project Food Blog Challenge #3 Dinner

Number of courses: 3

Total number of guests: 21

Number of adults: 9

Adult to child ratio: 3:4

Age of youngest guest in months: 4

Age of oldest guest in years: 40

Average age in years of guests: 17
Percentage of males present: 42

Dollar amount spent on dinner: 145

Amount of mochi cake consumed in inches: 58 1/2

Birth date of the oldest child present: 5/22/2004
Number of times guests asked the host  if she had eaten anything: 6

Number of kimchee quesadilla pieces eaten by the oldest person in the room: 4

Total number of kimchee quesadillas pieces consumed by the children: 0

Bowls of soup consumed: 11

Longest distance driven in miles to get to the dinner: 22.1

Total number of times dishwasher was run to finish out all the plates from dinner: 3

Photographs of the dinner

We fed the children first, and this young one wouldn't leave the table until she finished her last drop of soup.

Then the adults began eating, starting with Kimchee Quesadillas.

Ladies first to make tacos. Moms had time to eat before they were summoned by their children.

Then the men....a look of glee as he constructs his taco.

This guest eats food with sheer enjoyment. (It makes the food look so tasty.)

Thumbs up and ready to take down the tacos.

Adults toasting their good fortune at eating without their children.

But this is generally the reality when the children outnumber the adults.  Still it's fun.

Dessert was with the kids.  This little one can't wait.

Child friendly, easy-to-grab desserts gather children faster than the Pied Piper.

What was remaining after everyone had their fill.

A final note, a good host always enjoys time with her guests and gets out from the kitchen (and from behind the camera. That's me in my the black shirt.)

Perhaps spending only $145 on 21 people may not fit the conventional idea of a luxurious dinner, but I don't think anyone missed the champagne and caviar.  People experienced a luxurious meal on many different levels.  A few guests mentioned that it was just luxurious to have the kids eat first so that they could focus on their own plate. Another guest was happy that she didn't have to do the dishes. Even as the host of this dinner, it was a simple luxury when one of my guests silently slipped into the kitchen and loaded the dishwasher before I could even stop her.  (In my defense, I begged her not to but she insisted.)  I  hope all my guests felt at least a bit of my intention and saw my care and desire to serve them a delicious, homemade, luxuriously-rich-in-love meal.  Throw a dinner party and treat your guests to your desire to serve them and care for them, and I know they will feel your love and your good intentions.  These are the luxuries that are hard to buy but worth every single moment.