We're living in the 70s, for a night anyway

One of our friends, who was little older and a fabulous cook, gave me and my husband a wise piece of advice after she attended one of our dinner parties in the late ‘70s. Don’t serve guests a dish you’ve never cooked before.

 Are you kidding? Where’s the fun in that?  It was advice we never took on board; nearly all our early dinner parties debuted a dish we’d never cooked before. In fact, come to think of it, they still do.

OK, so there were a few failures. But picking through oil-sodden breadcrumbs mixed with melted ice-cream (it took a few false starts before we perfected our deep-fried ice-cream balls) or spooning down unset strawberry mousse were not the worst things our friends have ever had to do.

On the other hand, eating a three-course pancake meal might have been. Yep, seafood mornay pancakes for entree, savoury mince pancakes for main and crushed pineapple crepes for dessert. For days after, my stomach felt like I’d poured concrete into it, and ditto for my bowel movements.  

Nevertheless, in honour of our early dinner party days, I’m channelling the ‘70s for the first Dinner Party Project event. It’s time to dust off the Australian Women’s Weekly Cookbook we got as an engagement present and relive the glory of those days.

The guest list will comprise some friends who sat through those early years of learning to cook with us and survived.  It will also include three young couples who weren’t even born in the 70s. It’s my mission to introduce them to some of the dishes popular in those days (did we really eat prunes wrapped in bacon?), play some good old disco music and maybe even break out our ABBA karaoke disc.

So, dig out your flares from the back of the wardrobe—‘70s, here we come.

Next blog: 11 February —the menu revealed