Anonymous wrote:OP here and thanks all for the thoughts. Some good ideas here. I will sift through in the next week or so and let you now what I end up with.

(And on the Thai suggestion - I love Thai food and that sounds incredible, but not in my league to try something like that for a dinner group. As my DH says, Thai is a cuisine best left to the professionals!)

NP. I wouldn’t serve an all-Thai dinner without having mastered several dishes, but it’s silly to say Thai cooking is best left to professionals. The dishes I (a white midwesterner) have made for my family from the Hot Thai Kitchen site/cookbook/Pailin’s YouTube channel (https://hot-thai-kitchen.com/ ) are among my family’s very favorites. I will say I think she underestimates how challenging it is for the inexperienced to make rice noodles from scratch, but you can find decent frozen ones at Asian markets.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What about great sliced ham from D'artignan plus cold salmon with dill sauce? Or Duck confit! Keep the sides simple with mashed potatoes, roasted vegetables, citrus salad.

No smelly salmon, even cold, please!

I'm really puzzled by the comment that cold salmon smells. I'm very sensitive to smells. The cold poached salmon from O'Donnells doesn't have any odor. Perhaps it's source of the fish?

NP - thanks for vinegar chicken rec- looks good!
Im also at a loss for dinner party inspiration. I regret not writing down menus when we hosted parties before pandemic

Can suggest Cornish game hens (maybe Moroccan style with preserved lemon and olives) roasted vegetables with couscous, hearty salad, ice cream with purchased pie, cookies or strawberries for dessert. Also like light lemon dessert idea that was suggested

Alison Roman sheet pan vinegar olive chicken is easy and tastes great. Was a hit at a 10 person dinner party we had. I did two spatchcocked chickens cut into pieces. We had roasted carrots and then I think I did cous cous. Would serve bacon wrapped or almond or goat cheese stuffed dates as an app. Lightly saute the dates in olive oil and a dusting of lime zest prior to stuffing/wrapping. Would get baklava and serve with vanilla ice cream and top with pistacchio liqueur (there's this fancy spirits shop now in Dupont that sells it).