The first of many...

The wedding was a total breeze. We arrived, we made promises and then we shook the house down!

We've been married for two full weeks and one day (as of 6:30 p.m.) and we have already survived our first dinner party... with real live other people who had to actually stomach the food and glug the wine.

If I have learned one thing from the Food Network there are two cardinal rules to hosting a dinner party:

1. Do as much prep-work ahead of time as possible
2. Never serve something you haven't made before.

Here are my rules:

1. If you have an office party the night before your dinner party, you are obligated to stumble home at 2:00 a.m. and ring your own doorbell twenty times instead of making even a modest effort to find your own keys (READ: fun will always be prioritized over prep-work).
2. Cooking something I've already made before is boring.

I like my rules better. I followed them with religious conviction.

I set an ambitious menu for myself:

Appetizer: caramelized onion and brie tart with mixed greens
Main: Beef Bourguignon with potatoes au gratin and roasted brussel sprouts
Dessert: Triple chocolate terrine

After a few misgivings with my stomach early Saturday morning, I got up around 10:00 a.m. to get the dinner underway. I started with the chocolate terrine - it was three layers of chocolate ganache, the bottom layer was the thickest and was made with semi-sweet chocolate, the other two layers were with milk and white chocolate that were more mousse-like in texture.

I had read the recipe over the day before and knew I would ultimately need to chill the terrine for 8 hours. I did not read the recipe closely enough and did not realize that once I made the ganaches I would have to chill them for an additional three hours before whipping them into shape. I didn't have three extra hours.

After about half an hour in the fridge I figured the ganache would be cold enough to whip. The thick dark chocolate layer made beautiful soft peeks in only a few moments... the other layers remained soupy. I put everything back into the fridge for further cooling in hopes that it would all come together eventually and started on Julia Child's Bourguignon.

After about 90 additional minutes I tried to whip the milk and white chocolate mixtures. This time they whipped into a very satisfying texture and it was finally time to start layering. I had initially intended on making the terrines individually portioned in little ramekins, but given that I was already a touch frustrated with myself (and it looked like there was a lot of chocolate to go around) I decided to stick with the traditional loaf-pan shape.

Unfortunately for me, the dark chocolate layer had hardened into something resembling cement in my mixing bowl. I managed to scrape most of it out with a spoon and was able to pack it down into the pan with the bottom of a glass. The other layers went smoothly.

All the while I'm working on this darn Bourguignon which is using up nearly every pan in my house, several times over.

Aside from an absolutely obnoxious mess that needed to be tidied up before our guests arrived, we managed to get everything together in the nick of time... with one minor snaffoo. "Roasted brussel sprouts" quickly turned into "blackened brussle sprouts" when I left them in the oven at 200 degrees to keep warm while we ate hors d'oeuvres.

No one complained and everyone seemed to enjoy the meal.

I'll chock this one up to a success on the dinner party scale.

I was pretty tired of cooking by the next morning and I had just finished putting away all of our fancy dishes when I got a call from my mom, "When are you leaving for the family Christmas Party and what are you bringing?" ... CRAP! Now that I don't live at home I have to actually contribute to these things?! Didn't I just feed you an enormous meal last night?! Using my pantry and some left-over ingredients from the dinner party I was able to pull together a baked ziti in record time.

Tomorrow night, I'm eating cereal.