Creating a Romantic dinner

By admin | March 23, 2009

There are three main elements to a romantic dinner:

There are a couple of ways to create soft romantic lighting. Put low watt bulbs in your lamps. Eat dinner by candlelight. (Don’t use too many that you set off your fire alarm.) Put lighting gels over you lights. Drape scarves around the lamp shades (be careful about over heating the fabric).

You know how to create a special menu for your loved one, for you know what their favorite foods are. Many people consider seafood special and others want an expensive cut of beef, so customize it for the two of you. But here’s a big hint, make the portions of food smaller than your normal meal. It is just the two of you, and you don’t want either of you to be uncomfortably stuffed after dinner, and then not have any fun during “dessert”. Consider feeding your loved one their dinner, or portions of it, and thereby enabling you to comfortably enter their personal space and take special care of them.

Here are some ideas to make your table setting romantic:

Have Fun!

Topics: Dinnerware information, dinner and dining tips | No Comments »

Is a Fancy Dinner on the menu?

By admin | March 22, 2009

Fancy dinner may or may not mean formal dinner. It is up to you to make the dinner as fancy as you want.

One way to make the dinner fancy, is to pull out your formal dinnerware, or dinnerware that is rarely used. Use special glassware to complement the dinnerware. Serve all the drinks in stemware, even the milk for the kids can be poured into a stemware glass.

Another way to compose a fancy dinner, is to serve each course separately, rather than placing all the food on the table at the same time. Start your meal with a soup, possibly a cold soup, like cucumber soup. Then, serve the salad, and put the salad dressing in a small gravy boat or creamer. Then serve the main course. You can separate the meat course from the vegetable course, but that could seem a little forced.

Another fun thing to do is to serve a small amount of a mild tasting sherbert in between each course – to cleanse the pallet.

For table decoration, let your dinnerware speak for itself. Create a low centerpiece, so everyone can easily enjoy conversation over the centerpiece. Fill one of your large serving bowls with flowers and or christmas tree balls or garland or . . . wherever your creativity takes you.

You do not have to load your table with lots of dinnerware, glassware, and flatware, but you certainly can. A general guideline for using flatware is to start using the outside flatware and work in toward the center plate. To set your table, the order from left to right is:
very small seafood fork (if serving a seafood appetizer)
small salad fork
dinner fork
charger plate
dinner knife
small or teaspoon spoon
soup spoon (if serving soup)
the bread and butter plate goes above the forks
the water glass (on right) and wine glass (on left) go above the knife and spoon
a dessert fork and spoon can be put above the charger

When you serve the soup in the soup bowl, place the soup bowl on the charger. The charger can collect any drips from the soup bowl and spoon. When the soup course is over, remove both the soup bowl and the charger.

That is some of the formal dining basics. When planning your dinner, incorporate those elements that will add enjoyment for your dinner, and don’t stress about using the other ones.

Topics: Dinnerware information, Flatware knives, forks and spoons, Register for dinnerware, dinner and dining tips, dinnerware uses | No Comments »

How to set a table

By admin | March 22, 2009

In today’s world, the rules of setting a table are wide open. If you wish to set a table according to the etiquette rules of 1940’s, you won’t get your answers here.

The first rule of setting a table: It is your table, make it personal. Use dinnerware, flatware, glassware, whatever that is a piece of you. It may be a dinnerware pattern you love, your grandmother’s flatware, your aunt’s crystal glasses, whatever it is, it has a meaning and a story for you.

The second rule is concerns space. You can’t have a successful dinner, if everyone is crammed together. So, don’t forget to allow for plenty of elbow room.

Basic table setting from left to right: small salad fork (if serving salad, if not, don’t put it out), dinner fork, dinner plate, dinner knife, spoon. The bread plate goes above the forks and the if there is a butter fork, put it on the bread plate. The water or wine glass goes above the knife. If you are serving soup, put the soup bowl on top of the dinner plate.

Topics: Register for dinnerware, dinner and dining tips, dinnerware uses | No Comments »

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