Someone doesn't eat carbs, someone else is a vegan. Somebody's dieting, and somebody else is emotional-eating their breakup. Someone hates Mexican food, and someone is on a spanakopita-only diet.
Can't we all just get along?
Food preferences are one of the hardest things to get right when hosting for a six-or-more dinner party. Especially with close friends who feel very comfortable asking you to cater to their likes (or more accurately, dislikes), the temptation to just say, "Screw it!" and order some pizzas is always lingering.
But doesn't one of your friends have that pesky pepperoni aversion?
There's an easy way to make menu decisions when it comes to managing food preferences: want versus need.
If one of your fondest friends doesn't care for feta cheese, you can graciously leave it off their salad. If they don't care for anything you're serving, they can graciously eat somewhere else.
But when it comes to allergies - the two most common I come across are gluten allergies (celiacs disease is actually not an allergy, but an autoimmune disease) and nuts - it is your job to avoid poisoning your esteemed guests.
Managing these menu-changers can seem overwhelming at first, but with a few trusty tricks at managing the wants and needs of guests, you can drop, swap or divert ingredients to manifest a totally manageable menu.
Preferences.
I hate mayonnaise. Thinking about it makes me gag. I prefer not to be in a room with it. And for all you Frenchies out there, adding some garlic and calling it aioli won't work - I'm onto you.
At a restaurant, I've been known to go so far as to say I'm allergic to it so that it doesn't sneak it's way onto my club sammy.
But as a guest at someone's house, you'll never hear me complain.
To make almost any condiment averse guest happy, serve sauce on the side. Whether it's ketchup at a cookout or Bernaise sauce on a steak, leave the power to get sauced in the hands of the people.
If there are particular non-condiment ingredients that not everyone likes, leave them on the side unless they're imperative to the recipe (mushrooms, goat cheese and jalopenos are some common offenders). But again, a guest in your house is at the mercy of your hospitality - if they wanted to special order, they could have driven through the Mickey-Ds. All you can do is your best, and no one ever starved because the host put mushrooms in the risotto.
Allergies.
Not liking the taste of olives is a totally different ballgame than having an anaphylactic reaction to peanuts. And it's not as easy as pulling the nuts out of your caramel brownies, the nut products are lurking everywhere, waiting to attack your guests between the taking of toast and tea.
Be vocal about your allergies. Since mine are bee stings, ragweed and penicillin, I don't bother pre-warning the hostess (unless of course, I have been invited to one of the "pharm parties" where you take strep throat medicine - isn't that what teenagers do instead of keg beer now?). But if you have a food allergy, let them know, and let them know how to look for it.
Here are a few ways I've learned to not make someone sick.
Celiacs: I famously - and embarrassingly - once served my Silly-Ass (Celiac) friend microwaved eggs, since my whole brunch menu was baked in flour and other wheat products. But since then, she's educated me on the many ways to bi-pass bread. For instance, g-free box mixes.
Mexican food is also Celiac-friendly, with corn tortillas / chips, fresh vegetables and taco seasoning that is both MSG and wheat flour-free.
You can never go wrong with fresh fruit or vegetables, which everyone enjoys, even if they win medals for digesting grains.
One note: g-free cakes do not rise like other cakes. I had to stuff the one below with fruit in the middle to make it stand up. And it was still too short.
Nuts: One of the executives I used to plan meetings for had a severe nut allergy. This warranted a sit-down with the head chef, hotel manager and every person that might be preparing or transporting food prior to the meeting to warn them that he would die, no really, die, if so much as hazelnut extract crossed his croissant.
And without fail, one unknowing staff member once forgot to change the filter between the hazelnut and regular coffee, and another put a peanut butter next to a chocolate chip. Chaos ensued.
It's easy to exclude nuts, but for this allergy, you can't be careful enough. Check labels when you're buying items to make sure that there is absolutely no nut product in anything. Wash the pans three to four times if you've made a nut product in them recently. Don't set nut products next to allergy-friendly ones. Label things closely so that you can spare yourself and your guest the pleasure of playing 20 questions around the appetizers.
For tips on asking the hostess to accommodate your aversion, visit Posts.
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