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#1 Posted : Saturday, February 24, 2024 8:28:16 AM(UTC)
I'm retiring next week and one of my goals is to host more dinner parties. My first is planned for March 1 (the day I retire). In preparation, I'm looking for cookbook that have full menus. I have a couple already:
The America's Test Kitchen Menu Cookbook: Kitchen-Tested Menus for Foolproof Dinner Parties
Cooking with Nora: Seasonal Menus from Restaurant Nora - Healthy, Light, Balanced, and Simple Food with Organic Ingredients
Good Friends, Great Dinners: 32 Glorious Menus for Casual Entertaining
Effortless Elegance with Colin Cowie: Menus, Tips, Strategies, and More Than 200 Recipes for Easy Entertaining

Any other recommendations????

Thanks!
#2 Posted : Saturday, February 24, 2024 4:00:44 PM(UTC)
I just bought Gourmet's Weekends at a used bookstore. It was published by the magazine in 1995 so I would describe it as fancy 90's food. There are lots of pictures and a wide variety of menus. Looks like ThriftBooks.com has it for $4.19.

I also want to have more dinner parties. When I make dinner for people, I try to do too much and get overwhelmed. A good menu can save me from myself.

Happy Retirement!
Melissa
#3 Posted : Saturday, February 24, 2024 7:55:37 PM(UTC)

Take a look at Gourmet Traveller Menus: a  good deal of the recipes in the book are available online ;-). The Australian Women's weekly also have a few great dinner party books.

#4 Posted : Saturday, February 24, 2024 11:47:05 PM(UTC)

Company: The Radically Casual Art of Cooking for Others by Amy Thielen is menu-based and has some very good looking recipes. I haven't cooked from it yet, but I plan to. 

#5 Posted : Sunday, February 25, 2024 5:10:51 AM(UTC)

You might enjoy Arabella Boxer's First Slice Your Cookbook. From a wonderful British author, published in 1964, it's spiral bound with the pages sliced to show starters, main courses and deserts as independent pages that you can put together in your own way. This Amazon review explains it pretty well and you can see images in this blog post.

#6 Posted : Sunday, February 25, 2024 3:59:52 PM(UTC)

You might try https://www.eatyourbooks.com/library?q=menu then sort by popularity.


Not my idea. I saw Jane do this in another post.

#7 Posted : Sunday, February 25, 2024 6:52:52 PM(UTC)

I love these Menu books by Brian Voll. They are self-published and only available through Kitchen Arts & Letters. Our Buy Book links go directly to the KA&L page for that booklet. Each booklet is one menu, what in the old days we would say "from soup to nuts" but now is pre-dinner cocktail to dessert. You can see what is in each menu on the More Detail tab for each listing. The booklet provides a shopping list, planning instructions e.g. which elements can be prepped ahead, all the recipes and little notes from the author. It's just one menu per booklet but they only cost $7 each. I have the set and plan to continue buying them as long as Brian writes them. If I ever get a spare moment (ha!) I may index them myself.

#8 Posted : Monday, February 26, 2024 11:56:38 AM(UTC)

I pulled these from my bookmark called Menus. I really enjoy cookbooks that include menus for matching up dishes, instead of just having lots of unrelated recipes.
Everyday Grand by Jocelyn Delk Adams
Celebrate with Babs by Barbara Costello
Now & Again by Julia Turshen
Pastry Queen Parties by Rebecca Rather and Alison Oresman
Essential New York Times Cookbook by Amanda Hesser
Martha Stewart Living Cookbook by Martha Stewart
Barefoot Contessa at Home by Ina Garten
Celebrate! Cookbook by Sheila Lukins

#10 Posted : Monday, February 26, 2024 1:17:03 PM(UTC)

Another one to consider is Sunday Supper at Lucques. Some recipes are rather involved but they are well worth the effort. 


Happy retirement!

#11 Posted : Monday, February 26, 2024 5:42:18 PM(UTC)

I really like Pam Anderson's Perfect One-Dish Dinners: All You Need for Easy Get-Togethers. It has menus of varying degrees of complexity, but none are too complex and she often has shortcut alternatives if you're short on time. At the other end of complexity spectrum, I second the recommendation for Sunday Suppers at Lucques; when you're in the mood to put some time into cooking and shopping, Suzanne Goin's recipes are worth it. 


Another more casual menu cookbook is Soup Makes the Meal: 150 Soul-Satisfying Recipes for Soups, Salads, and Breads. (I like this enough that I indexed it!) It's arranged seasonally and each menu has a soup, salad, and bread recipe. 

#12 Posted : Saturday, March 9, 2024 12:23:52 AM(UTC)

For vegetarians: Mollie Katzen’s Still Life With Menu Cookbook. The book is indexed and there is also a later revised edition.

#13 Posted : Sunday, March 10, 2024 5:50:02 PM(UTC)
<p>The first cookbook I bought for myself when I was just starting out was Anna Thomas' <a href="https://www.eatyourbooks.com/library/14179/the-vegetarian-epicure-262-recipes">The Vegetarian Epicure</a>, and one of the most useful lessons I learned from it right off the bat was how to think about putting a menu together. She also included a set of menus incorporating dishes from the book (&amp; ditto for the later <a href="https://www.eatyourbooks.com/library/31537/the-vegetarian-epicure-book-two">Veg Ep Book Two</a>). Deborah Madison does likewise in <a href="https://www.eatyourbooks.com/library/10037/vegetarian-cooking-for-everyone">Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone</a>. Minimizing the amount of day-of and especially last-minute cooking has been the key to relaxed hosting for me, but a lot depends on your guests and facilities and temperament. Edited to add: Congratulations on your retirement, noumena, and I hope the dinner party project is tremendously satisfying!</p>
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