Come Dine With Me - Series 4 The not so fine dinner party

Date Published:

02/04/2008

Who needs rules to have a good time? Normally a lover of high society dining, Charlie Cottrell throws out the tiara and tries a more relaxed approach to dinner party decorum.

I've never cooked a dinner party before and to be honest, some rules of etiquette would offer a welcome crutch as I hobble off into the unknown. When it comes to new experiences, I'm with Monica in Friends; 'rules help control the fun'. Especially when 'the fun' will involve slaving over a hot oven all afternoon.

But it's not to be. While Hannah enjoys the pomp and ceremony of an etiquette rich dinner party, I have to rely on the good nature of my guests to create an enjoyable evening of dinner and stimulating conversation.

The guests

First the guest list. There are five takers for dinner - there were supposed to be six but on the morning of my dinner party one guest remembers that she has dinner with a new partner's family and pulls out.

"That's fine," I say and I mean it - after all this is an easy-come-easy-go event. With no rules to dictate a boy-girl seating plan, the gender bias created by the odd number of diners is no problem - hurrah. What is a problem is the seating plan.

The seating

Living in a bijou attic flat means that I have no decent entertaining space so I commandeer my boyfriend's flat to hold my soiree - his dining table only seats four. "Can we have dinner on our knees in the living room?" he asks?
Can we? That seems uncouth but then again maybe it's just casual and casual's what this dinner party is all about.

This dilemma is solved at 5pm (a mere two hours before the main event) when the hurdle of just turning up claims another diner. Having gone AWOL since the invite, I call him to check he knows the address.
"Erm, I'm not sure I can make it," he squirms.
"Why, what's happened?" I ask.
"Well the thing is I had a bit of a massive one last night. I'm still pretty wasted, there's no way I can face leaving my flat. Sorry."
"That's fine." I say but this time I don't mean it - if I hadn't called he would have slunk out as a dirty-no-show with no apology. Etiquette or not, that's pretty poor.

The dress code

The other guests arrive early for a pre-dinner chat with my boyfriend which is casual and thus fine. They're so casual in fact that two of them turn up in tracksuit bottoms. "I'll be serving up at seven," I tell them as they arrive. At five past seven no-one has emerged from the living room so I go through to call them to the table. I feel like their mum.

The dinner

Down to four, we restore a bit of decorum and eat at the dinner table. To get me through the stress of my debut as hostess, I've gone for a simple, cold starter, fish as the main course and a really great pudding; the theory is that if the last thing they eat is good, my guests will go away on a high.

Conversation over the starter flows smoothly. People are impressed with my pretty tasty salad and excited about the monster pudding that's sitting proudly on the work surface. I've miscalculated timings between courses so there's a 20 minute wait before the main is ready but everyone is chatting on so happily the time passes quickly.

The conversation

Even though we all see each other and chat all the time, the nature of our conversation over dinner is different from our usual banter. We even get into the realms of family, which is more personal territory than I'm used to with this particular group of friends. Without the distraction of TV or music we are actually getting to know each other better. Anecdotes are shared, wine glasses clink merrily. And before we know it it's time for le piece de resistance Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall 's chestnut and chocolate truffle cake.

The cake is barely on the table before hands dart onto the plate to grab for crumbs. It's not polite, it might not even be hygienic but it is flattering. Likewise the second helping that my boyfriend serves himself to before the rest of us have finished our first lot.

Full of rich chocolatey cake and with coffee brewing one guest asks, "When is it the correct etiquette to go and collapse on the sofa?" and is backed up with a chorus of approving sighs. "That's fine" I say and off they troop. It's been an hour and a half from starter to exodus: as I carry the coffee mugs into the living room, that 'mumsy' feeling hits me again.

Without any emphasis on etiquette, it feels like catering. Having spent days planning a menu, shopping for ingredients and giving up my Sunday to cook, it was a bit of a knock when even my boyfriend turned up to the table barefoot and everyone bowled off to watch TV after ganneting down the fruits of my labour. There's such thing as too casual..