Ryan DAgostino - The Eat Like a Man Guide to Feeding a Crowd: How to Cook for Family, Friends, and Spontaneous Parties

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BRYAN VOLTAGGIO

P EOPLE DONT LIKE to cook for me anymore. Somewhere along the way, my presence as a guest simply became a chore for the host, my RSVP an albatross. We do a dance where the hosts nervously ask if everything is okay, and I assure and comfort them profusely, saying, yes, indeed things are actually great; I even take a second helping as proof. I have a feeling they dont really believe me, but we usually leave it at that, moving on to another subject as the common courtesies have all been met. But still, I know, they wonder.

What they dont realize is that things are perfect. This is where the restaurant started: at the home table. Here lie the raw materials, the source of it allthe egg to the chicken.

Ive experienced all the stages of chef-dom, from student cook exclusively devoted to all things culinary to chef leading brigades of compatriots through the battle of Saturday night service to a competitive television personality; but it was becoming a restaurateur that taught me that cooking, truly good cooking, is about generosity more than perfection. Polish all the silver and starch as many aprons as you wantif that emotional bond isnt there, tying the flavor to the experience, all of the technique in the world wont conjure up hospitality.

Pimento cheese on a Ritz can be as delicious as truffle mushroom bisque served in a delicate bone-china demitasse when served with the right sentiment. The more critically creative parts of my job, the parts that include liquid nitrogen, dehydrators, anti-griddles, ovens that I can program from my phone, and forceps that allow me to plate the most delicate of ingredient perfectly every time are just a small part of my job as a professional chef.

These sophistications have become the standard accoutrements of haute cuisine; but let me tell you, after all is said and done and strained twice through the chinoise, what you are left with is the essence of it all: Inspired cooking. I am a husband, a father, a son, and a neighbor, and I am inspired to cook every time and for whomever the customer may be, whether its a late-night leftover meatball sandwich for a friend crashing over or chicken fingers for my kids. All it takes to be a good cook is an egg, a hungry person, and the desire to put a smile on their face.

Cooking for a group at home is a luxury for me these days, something covetable and elusive, akin to a relaxing hobby. With so many expectant mouths to feed in the community, cooking for guests outside of one of my restaurants or public functions is a downright enviable situation. When I do get the chance, I revel in the task; this is my mental yoga. Preparing a meal for guests at home removes the business from the chef-customer equation and allows me to disconnect from the service, sip a beer while I work, plan the meal, and look forward to sitting down at a table with friends (something that never happens while Im in my whites). I can become a civilian again, be a part of the conversation that exists outside the bounds of the food itself, and experience the meal from start to finish. The only thing I end up missing is my Olympic team of dishwashers.

Now its your turn. If I were standing next to you in the kitchen, here is what I would tell you: Cooking for a group is tactical.

• Plan something you know, and practice a time or two with smaller batches.
• Do what you can do the day before, even peeling onions or carrots and washing bunches of herbs.
• Get a big heavy-duty bag and close an edge into a drawer just under the countertop near to where you will be working. The opening will sag down and create a big gaping maw that you can easily chuck things into as you go. (Most home garbage containers are too small for this kind of work.) Fill it up once and take it out before the guests arrive.
• Have a nice big, heavy cutting board as headquarters of operations, not one of those small plastic jobbies that is only suited for cutting bar fruit.
• If people are arriving at eight oclock, plan to be done at seven oclock.
• People are going to want to arrive and help. Set some tasks aside specifically for this; dishes is always a good answer if only to get them out of your hair for a minute.
• If people insist on bringing something, be specific about it. Leaving that kind of decision up to the guest means you can end up with three different 3-bean salads, all with the same three beans.
• Its easier to make one nice platter look better than assembling ten plates.
• Let someone else bring dessert.

DAVID GRANGER | EDITOR IN CHIEF, ESQUIRE

U NLIKE BRYAN VOLTAGGIO , I am not a good cook. Im a fine amateur sous chef, meaning that I am competent at a lot of the tasks that aid my wife in creating a dinner party. But Im just not a very good cook. I dont have the patience or the interest to spend a day (and sometimes more) making a meal.

And, yet, on occasion, I have enjoyed being the human responsible for feeding a significant number of people. I remember the first time I made a rendition of huevos rancheros for a bunch of friends and relatives who had spent the night. Im not sure I had ever made them before. (If I had, it was just for myself.) I just decided to do it for, like, twelve. I knew how to fry up tortillas. I could imagine making a salsa-flavored black bean mash. I have made guacamole for my entire life. I can grate cheeses. I am capable of chopping tomatoes and lettuce and scallions. I had some good bottled salsa verde. I remembered that my favorite meal from my childhood was scrambled eggs cooked by my mom on a Coleman stove at the beach and that she first fried up breakfast sausage, crumbled it, and then poured the eggs into that very same pan and cooked em up. Thirty-five years later, I could still taste those sausage scrambled eggs.

So thats what I did: I made all those individual things, made coffee, put out juice, set the big round table on our deck, and then loaded all the component parts into bowls and onto warmed platters (where appropriate) and asked everyone to sit down and encouraged them to assemble their breakfasts. I cant say it was easy (it was work!) but it was uncomplicatedanyone with the will could have done it. And it was perfect. Of course, the perfection probably had as much to do with sitting outside, with a view of the river on a warm, sunny late morning, as it did with anything I had done. But, as with everything, its all context.