Buffet Dinner Quotes

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Yeah, okay. You're right. I was having dinner with Zombie Carl the other night. You know, steak, rare, and a bottle of vintage type A. He told me all his secrets, but too bad for you I promised him I wouldn't tell. In exchange I asked him to gather his best undead buddies and stalk me through my friend's yard. And oh, yeah, it was totally fine if they wanted to use me as an all-night-dinner buffet, because having organs is SO last year.
Gena Showalter (Alice in Zombieland (White Rabbit Chronicles, #1))
All worries are less with wine.
Amit Kalantri (Wealth of Words)
Inviting the invading army over for dinner, buffet style, is a bad idea. Especially when I just took a bath in the last of your mac and cheese.
Jarod Kintz (So many chairs, and no time to sit)
Are you suggesting I’m working with the zombies? That I paid them to pretend to attack me so that I’d trick you into letting me join you?”“Did you?” Mr. Holland demanded.“Yeah, okay,” I said in a sugar-sweet tone. “You’re right. I was having dinner with Zombie Carl the other night. You know, steaks, rare, and a bottle of vintage type A. He told me all his secrets, but too bad for you I promised him I wouldn’t tell. In exchange I asked him to gather his best undead buddies and stalk me through my friend’s yard. And oh, yeah, it was totally fine if they wanted to use me as an all-night dinner buffet, because having organs is so last season.
Gena Showalter (Alice in Zombieland (White Rabbit Chronicles, #1))
Hunger gives flavour to the food.
Amit Kalantri (Wealth of Words)
Some people when they see cheese, chocolate or cake they don't think of calories.
Amit Kalantri (Wealth of Words)
That pronouncement went over about as well as an all-vegan buffet at a Cattlemen's Association dinner.
Dianne Duvall (Night Reigns (Immortal Guardians, #2))
Hamlet's Cat's Soliloquy "To go outside, and there perchance to stay Or to remain within: that is the question: Whether 'tis better for a cat to suffer The cuffs and buffets of inclement weather That Nature rains on those who roam abroad, Or take a nap upon a scrap of carpet, And so by dozing melt the solid hours That clog the clock's bright gears with sullen time And stall the dinner bell. To sit, to stare Outdoors, and by a stare to seem to state A wish to venture forth without delay, Then when the portal's opened up, to stand As if transfixed by doubt. To prowl; to sleep; To choose not knowing when we may once more Our readmittance gain: aye, there's the hairball; For if a paw were shaped to turn a knob, Or work a lock or slip a window-catch, And going out and coming in were made As simple as the breaking of a bowl, What cat would bear the houselhold's petty plagues, The cook's well-practiced kicks, the butler's broom, The infant's careless pokes, the tickled ears, The trampled tail, and all the daily shocks That fur is heir to, when, of his own will, He might his exodus or entrance make With a mere mitten? Who would spaniels fear, Or strays trespassing from a neighbor's yard, But that the dread of our unheeded cries And scraches at a barricaded door No claw can open up, dispels our nerve And makes us rather bear our humans' faults Than run away to unguessed miseries? Thus caution doth make house cats of us all; And thus the bristling hair of resolution Is softened up with the pale brush of thought, And since our choices hinge on weighty things, We pause upon the threshold of decision.
Henry N. Beard (Poetry for Cats: The Definitive Anthology of Distinguished Feline Verse)
High school and college students like to torture their bodies. They pull countless all-nighters, continually skip breakfast, eat nothing but ramen noodles for dinner, find creative new ways to guzzle alcohol, transform into couch potatoes, and gain 15 pounds at the freshman dinner buffet. At least, that's the stereotype.
Stefanie Weisman (The Secrets of Top Students: Tips, Tools, and Techniques for Acing High School and College)
It’s like, when you’re going out to dinner and you don’t really care where you go, but the other person really wants to go to the Chinese buffet. Maybe you don’t love the Chinese buffet, but it’s kind of rude to argue when you don’t even really care.
Rainbow Rowell (Attachments: Is there such a thing as love before first sight? The romantic comedy we all need to read in 2024)
When you grow up the way I do, and the biggest thing in your life so far has been getting dunked in a glass tank by a man who acts like he’s mugging you but says instead he’s saving your soul, then celebrating your soul mugging at Sizzler with your parents (get the buffet by itself, not added on to a steak dinner, because the buffet already has sirloin tips), you need rules. And not their rules, not God’s rules, but mine. My own. Here’s on of Eliot’s Rules for Dating: When you first meet a girl, make sure you are accidentally conducting a chemistry experiment on your lips. OK. I didn’t say they were all good rules.
Brad Barkley (Scrambled Eggs at Midnight)
I pulled the lever repeatedly not even paying attention to whether or not I was winning anything. Her voice startled me. “You look like you have something on your mind.” “I do?” “Who is he, and what did he do?” I’d never see this woman again after today. Maybe I should just let it all out. “You want the long version or the short version?” “I’m ninety, and the dinner buffet opens in five minutes. Give me the short version.” “Okay. I’m here with my stepbrother. Seven years ago, we slept together right before he moved away.” “Taboo…I like it. Go on.” I laughed. “Okay…well, he was the first and last guy I ever really cared about. I never thought I’d see him again. His father died this week, and he came back for the funeral. He wasn’t alone. He brought a girl he supposedly loves. I know she loves him. She’s a good person. She had to go back to California early. Somehow, I ended up at this casino with him. He leaves tomorrow.” A single teardrop fell down my face. “It looks to me like you still care about him.” “I do.” “Well, then you have twenty-four hours.” “No, I don’t plan to screw things up for him.” “Is he married?” “No.” “Then, you have twenty-four hours.” She looked at her watch and leaned on her walker to stand herself up. She gave me her hand. “I’m Evelyn.” “Hi, Evelyn. I’m Greta.” “Greta…fate gave you an opportunity. Don’t fuck it up,” she said before she scooted away on the walker.
Penelope Ward (Stepbrother Dearest)
was only once they accepted these two realities that Greg and Emily found a way to break their stalemate. Instead of focusing on the number of dinner parties they’d give, they started talking about the format of the parties. Instead of seating everyone around a big table, which would require the kind of all-hands conversational multitasking Emily dislikes so much, why not serve dinner buffet style, with people eating in small, casual conversational groupings
Susan Cain (Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking)
Most hotels offer a free buffet breakfast. Finns tend to eat their biggest meal of the day at lunchtime, so many cafes and restaurants put on a lounas special (of buffet) from Monday to Friday. Weekend brunssi (brunch) has become a big deal in the cities. Finns have dinner as early as 5pm. It's often just a light meal, but will eat much later if it’s an organised, ‘going out for dinner’ affair.
Lonely Planet Finland
I like to cook for 2, or for 4 or 6 at the most 8 people. Beyond that you get into quantity cooking and that is just not my field at all. The last time we had 12 for a sit-down dinner and I did all the cooking, and Paul and I did all the setting up, serving, and washing up afterwards, I said never again. I’ll do a buffet, but I don’t consider that civilized dining; it is feeding, and I like to sit down at a well-set table.
Julia Child (From Julia Child's Kitchen)
This wasn't sadness--there were no feelings of desperation or disaster, nothing like depression with its one slowed-down realization of having been badly and untraceably misunderstood--but rather a plain, artless form of loneliness; something uninteresting, factual, and teachable, perhaps, to children or adults, with flashcards of household items (toothbrush, pillow), coloring books of fleeting, unaccompanied things (hailstones that melt midair; puddles formed and unseen and gone; illusions of friends in the periphery), and a few real-world assignments (post-nap trip to the pet store in the early, breezy evening; Halloween night asleep on the sofa; Saturday night dinner in the parking lot, looking through the windshield at the pizza buffet restaurant you just got take-out from).
Tao Lin (Bed)
Your first sign something may be amiss comes quickly, the moment you get off the plane at the airport in Baltimore. After months of deprivation, American excess is overwhelming. Crowds of self-important bustling businessmen. Shrill and impatient advertising that saturates your eyes and ears. Five choices of restaurant, with a hundred menu items each, only a half-minute walk away at all times. In the land you just left, dinners are uniformly brown and served on trays when served at all. I was disoriented by the choice, the lights, the infinite variety of gummy candy that filled an entire wall of the convenience store, a gluttonous buffet repeated every four gates. The simple pleasure of a cup of coffee after a good night’s sleep, sleep you haven’t had since you received your deployment orders, seems overly simple when reunited with such a vast volume of overindulgent options. But the shock wears off, more quickly for some, but eventually for most. Fast food and alcohol are seductive, and I didn’t fight too hard. Your old routine is easy to fall back into, preferences and tastes return. It’s not hard to be a fussy, overstuffed American. After a couple of months, home is no longer foreign, and you are free to resume your old life. I thought I did. Resume my old life, that is. I was wrong.
Brian Castner (The Long Walk: A Story of War and the Life That Follows)
I had to pull columnist George Will out of a baseball game—like yanking Hemingway out of a bar—to correct one misattributed quote, and berate blogger Josh Rogin for recording a public talk between Jeffrey Goldberg and me in a synagogue, on Yom Kippur. Most miffing was the book This Town, a pillorying of well-connected Washingtonians by The New York Times’s Mark Leibovich. The only thing worse than being mentioned in Mark’s bestselling book was not being mentioned in it. I merited much of a paragraph relating how, at the Christmas party of media grandees Ben Bradlee and Sally Quinn, I “hovered dangerously over the buffet table, eyeing a massive Christmas ham.” But Nathan Guttman, a reporter for The Jewish Daily Forward, changed the word “eyeing” to “reaching for,” insinuating that I ate the ham. Ironically, the embassy employed Nathan’s caterer wife to cook gala kosher dinners. George Will graciously corrected the quote and Josh Rogin apologized. The Jewish Daily Forward printed a full retraction. Yet, in the new media age, old stories never vanish. A day after the Forward’s faux pas, I received several angry phone calls from around the United States. “You should be ashamed of yourself!” they remonstrated. “The Israeli ambassador eating trief? In public? On Christmas?” I tried to defend myself—“I didn’t eat it, I eyed it”—but fruitlessly. Those calls reminded me that, more complex than many of the issues I faced in the press, and often more explosive, was the minefield of American Jewry.
Michael B. Oren (Ally: My Journey Across the American-Israeli Divide)
The menu is spectacular. Passed hors d'oeuvres include caramelized shallot tartlets topped with Gorgonzola, cubes of crispy pork belly skewered with fresh fig, espresso cups of chilled corn soup topped with spicy popcorn, mini arepas filled with rare skirt steak and chimichurri and pickle onions, and prawn dumplings with a mango serrano salsa. There is a raw bar set up with three kinds of oysters, and a raclette station where we have a whole wheel of the nutty cheese being melted to order, with baby potatoes, chunks of garlic sausage, spears of fresh fennel, lightly pickled Brussels sprouts, and hunks of sourdough bread to pour it over. When we head up for dinner, we will start with a classic Dover sole amandine with a featherlight spinach flan, followed by a choice of seared veal chops or duck breast, both served with creamy polenta, roasted mushrooms, and lacinato kale. Next is a light salad of butter lettuce with a sharp lemon Dijon vinaigrette, then a cheese course with each table receiving a platter of five cheeses with dried fruits and nuts and three kinds of bread, followed by the panna cottas. Then the cake, and coffee and sweets. And at midnight, chorizo tamales served with scrambled eggs, waffle sticks with chicken fingers and spicy maple butter, candied bacon strips, sausage biscuit sandwiches, and vanilla Greek yogurt parfaits with granola and berries on the "breakfast" buffet, plus cheeseburger sliders, mini Chicago hot dogs, little Chinese take-out containers of pork fried rice and spicy sesame noodles, a macaroni-and-cheese bar, and little stuffed pizzas on the "snack food" buffet. There will also be tiny four-ounce milk bottles filled with either vanilla malted milk shakes, root beer floats made with hard root beer, Bloody Marys, or mimosas.
Stacey Ballis (Wedding Girl)
French picked up and integrated as many as two thousand Italian words, such as arcade, balcon (balcony), concert, cavalerie (cavalry), infanterie (infantry) and bizarre. The result was a cornucopia of terms from regional and foreign languages. For modern readers, the most surprising aspect of sixteenth-century French is its casualness. Most French speakers today, especially the purists, assume that French was born clear and uniform, but until the seventeenth century the language had none of the orderly precision for which it would be famous in centuries to come. During the baroque period, French was indeed baroque. Writers of François I’s era treated French like a buffet dinner, helping themselves to words from regional dialects and foreign languages, creating new words as it suited them, using verbs as nouns and basically serving up the language any way they pleased. This large-scale creativity and inventiveness gave writers a verve and a vigour that would never be matched once the cult of bon usage (correct usage) took hold in the next century.
Jean-Benoît Nadeau (The Story of French)
A fruit basket would have been nice, but instead we found that a flyer had been slipped under the door. Dear Brainwashed Cowards, You are nothing but puppets of the corrupt Shah. We will teach you a lesson you will never forget. Death to the Shah. Death to you. My father crumpled the flyer and threw it away. “Let’s find out where they’re having the dinner buffet,” he said.
Firoozeh Dumas (Funny In Farsi: A Memoir Of Growing Up Iranian In America)
You must hunt your own dinner, but at least there is no buffet line.
Jim McKelvey (The Innovation Stack: Building an Unbeatable Business One Crazy Idea at a Time)
1930s Preserving The Arts of Peace The decade before the Second World War started much like the previous one. The stock exchange had crashed, there were 3 million unemployed, a 1931 hunger march was dispersed with baton charges, and the 'Bright Young Things' and their elder bluestocking systers veered towards the Left. 'If you haven't lost money,' advised Vogue, 'pretend you have. Mayfair has gone native; no champagne, and dinner cut to two courses.' Servants were released. One served one's own cocktails or perhaps copied Mademoiselle Chanel and arranged 'buffet-style meals'. 'Guests toss their own salads!' reported Vogue. To flaunt wealth would not do at all - 'one is still grand, but one is poor,' remarked Cecil Beaton.
Robin Derrick (People in Vogue: A Century of Portraits)
drizzled over it and a garnish. And “garnish” is just a fancy name for a plain old piece of parsley. So, to save money, Brianna and I decided to cook a romantic candlelit dinner for Mom and Dad as an anniversary surprise. We took a big bucket and a net to the pond at the park and hunted down some fresh frog legs and snails. It was MY brilliant idea to make it an all-you-can-eat buffet, since we were basically getting the food for FREE. CHEF NIKKI AND HER ASSISTANT PREPARE A TASTY GOURMET DINNER OF FROG LEGS AND SNAILS Trying to prepare a gourmet dinner was definitely a lot harder than I thought it would be. The frogs kept jumping out of
Rachel Renée Russell (Tales from a Not-So-Fabulous Life (Dork Diaries, #1))
The casino was at the center of a constellation of transactions. I saw fishermen come to fish the lake; a woman looking for a job; elders cracking crab legs at the casino buffet—one of two restaurants on the reservation that served breakfast, lunch, and dinner; and a steady flow of men in suits. One morning, I watched a tour bus disgorge a hundred elderly passengers and learned they had come from a senior center in Bismarck. They were among the few patrons I saw come solely for the slots. The other gamblers were oil workers and tribal members, many of whom lived in the lodge.
Sierra Crane Murdoch (Yellow Bird: Oil, Murder, and a Woman's Search for Justice in Indian Country)
I’m bored to tears and nearly dead with cold,” she said, dropping her cloak. He remained atop the stairs, watching her. “And it’s your fault,” she went on, stuffing her hands into her pockets. “You made me come out here, and someone left the balcony door open so I could hear all that lovely music. So you should really reconsider who’s to blame. It was like putting a starving man in front of a feast and telling him not to eat. Which, by the way, you actually did when you made me go to that state dinner.” She was babbling, and her face was dark enough for him to know she was beyond mortified that he’d caught her. He bit his lip to keep from smiling and walked down the four steps to the gravel path of the garden. “You’re the greatest assassin in Erilea, and yet you can’t stand watch for a few hours?” “What’s there to watch?” she hissed. “Couples sneaking out to fondle each other between the hedges? Or His Royal Highness, dancing with every eligible maiden?” “You’re jealous?” She barked a laugh. “No! Gods, no. But I can’t say it’s particularly fun to watch him. Or watch any of them enjoying themselves. I think I’m more jealous of that giant buffet no one is even touching.
Sarah J. Maas (Crown of Midnight (Throne of Glass, #2))
However, my next-door neighbors had an entirely different manner of eating. When I’d go over there for dinner, it was buffet style, only a truly global sampling. Beluga caviar from Iran, with each individual egg handpicked with as much consideration as a cabinet post for the White House. Deviled eggs so scrumptious it was as if Satan himself prepared them. Pastries and Danishes made from scratch like a tasty mosquito bite. And finally, bird’s nest soup consisting of more fowl saliva than even Donald Duck ever spat during one of his more vociferous spats.
Jarod Kintz (Gosh, I probably shouldn't publish this.)
Lincoln worked Christmas Eve, then went out for dinner with a bunch of the copy editors. There was a casino across the river with a twenty-four-hour buffet. “With crab legs tonight,” Chuck said, “on account of Christ’s birth.
Rainbow Rowell (Attachments)
That evening he put me up at the Glasshouse Mountains Motel, a few miles from the zoo. Steve was very chivalrous. I met his parents and had dinner with the whole family. I also got my first taste of Australian humor. That night at dinner, I poured myself what I thought was a nice glass of juice. The entire Irwin family sat quiet and straight-faced. As I took a big swig, it nearly choked me. That’s when I learned about cordial, which is supposed to be mixed with water. I had poured it full strength. We all had a good laugh. The next night Steve and I went to dinner in Caloundra, a nearby town. He took me to a resort that featured an all-you-can-eat buffet dinner--seafood banquet, my favorite. I loaded my plate high with prawns, crab, oysters, and everything I loved. I didn’t know it then, but Steve was a bit worried that I was going to eat more than he did. At one point a little piece of crab flicked onto the crook of my arm. I deftly reached down with my tongue and managed to grab it off my elbow and eat it. Suddenly I felt self-conscious. Steve was staring at me. He looked at me with such love in his eyes, and I thought, He’s going to say something wonderful. Steve leaned forward and said affectionately, “ Gosh, you aren’t ladylike at all.” I burst out laughing. Apparently I’d done the right thing. I reflected back on my dad’s advice: No matter what, always be yourself. And it sure had worked. As we left the restaurant, Steve said, “You know, I smell ducks.” We walked outside, and sure enough, there was a flock of beautiful ducks bobbing around on a pond. “Steve, you are the most amazing bushman I’ve ever met,” I said. Of course, the resort and the pond had been there for years, and Steve had known about the ducks for just as long. “I smell ducks” was a Crocodile Dundee trick that had nevertheless worked its magic on this naïve American girl. And then, suddenly, the weekend was over. Steve drove me back down to Brisbane. I had the biggest ache in my heart. I had fallen hard. As we said good-bye, he put his arms around me for the first time, and I felt all his strength and warmth in that embrace. But it was over. I was going back to my side of the world. I had no idea if I would ever see Steve Irwin again.
Terri Irwin (Steve & Me)
The next night Steve and I went to dinner in Caloundra, a nearby town. He took me to a resort that featured an all-you-can-eat buffet dinner--seafood banquet, my favorite. I loaded my plate high with prawns, crab, oysters, and everything I loved. I didn’t know it then, but Steve was a bit worried that I was going to eat more than he did. At one point a little piece of crab flicked onto the crook of my arm. I deftly reached down with my tongue and managed to grab it off my elbow and eat it. Suddenly I felt self-conscious. Steve was staring at me. He looked at me with such love in his eyes, and I thought, He’s going to say something wonderful. Steve leaned forward and said affectionately, “ Gosh, you aren’t ladylike at all.” I burst out laughing. Apparently I’d done the right thing. I reflected back on my dad’s advice: No matter what, always be yourself. And it sure had worked.
Terri Irwin (Steve & Me)
Martin eyed the buffet table because he'd slept through dinner and was ravenous; but as luck would have it, who was standing next to the tower of cream cakes but Evelyn- looking equally delicious in a stunning, pale yellow gown of light diaphanous fabric that seemed to flutter around her legs on a nonexistent breeze. And her bosom... Well, she looked delectable with pearls crisscrossing over her lush, alluring breasts.
Julianne MacLean (Surrender to a Scoundrel (American Heiresses, #6))
AT THE OFFICE “Coworkers who talk too loudly in the office.” “Employees who goof-off and engage in extended personal conversations.” “A manager who implements a new policy for everybody when there is only one offender of the existing policy whom he is too chicken to confront.” “People who bark orders, make demands, and treat everybody as their servants—and forget to say ‘please’ or ‘thank you.’ ” So-called professionals who tend to overeat at company-sponsored buffet luncheons/dinners or people who ask the waiter to bring them an extra serving of a dish at a banquet. Why don’t they eat what’s offered and pig out in the privacy of their homes?” “A person who brags about…anything.” “Managers who reprimand subordinates publicly.” “Being put on a speaker phone without
Deborah Smith Pegues (Socially Smart in 60 Seconds: Etiquette Do's and Don'ts for Personal and Professional Success)
Annie was trying to listen but she was unable to shake the image of herself dressed in a knock-off Lady Lightning outfit, sitting alone at a table at a mid-level comic book convention, drinking a diet soda and staring at her cell phone, which did not ring. “Annie?” Daniel said. “I want to talk to you about the movie.” Annie imagined herself in Japan, shilling caffeinated tapioca pearls, living in a closet-size apartment, dating a washed-up sumo wrestler. “Annie?” Daniel said again. Annie imagined herself doing dinner theater in a converted barn, playing Myra Marlowe in A Bad Year for Tomatoes, getting fat on carved roast beef and macaroni and cheese from the buffet during intermission. “I want to help you, Annie,” Daniel continued, undeterred by Annie’s blank-faced analysis of her future. “And I think I can.
Kevin Wilson (The Family Fang)
After the buffet dinner of seafood gumbo, snow crab claws, oysters Bienville, crawfish étouffée, and creole jambalaya
Mary Jane Clark (That Old Black Magic (Wedding Cake Mystery, #4))
The waitress comes over with a tray of the official cocktail of the evening, the ELT French 40. It's a riff on a French 75, adjusted to suit us, with bourbon instead of gin, champagne, lemon juice, and simple syrup, with a Luxardo cherry instead of a lemon twist. "Here you go, ladies. As soon as your guests are here we will start passing hors d'oeuvres, but I thought you might want a little sampler plate before they arrive." "That is great, thanks so much!" I say, knowing that in a half hour when people start to come in, we'll have a hard time eating and mingling. We accept the flutes and toast each other. The drink is warming and refreshing at the same time. The platter she has brought us contains three each of all the passed appetizers we chose: little lettuce cups with spicy beef, mini fish tacos, little pork-meatball crostini, fried calamari, and spoons with creamy burrata topped with grapes and a swirl of fig balsamic. There will also eventually be a few of their signature pizzas set up on the buffet, and then, for dinner, everyone has their choice of flat-iron steak, roasted chicken, or grilled vegetables, served with roasted fingerlings. For dessert, there is either a chocolate chunk or apple oatmeal cookie, served toasty warm with vanilla ice cream and either hot fudge or caramel on top, plus there will be their famous Rice Krispies Treats on the tables to share.
Stacey Ballis (How to Change a Life)
There were two daily mealtimes at Eversby Priory: a hearty breakfast and a hedonistic dinner. In between, an artful miscellany of leftovers was arranged in a sideboard buffet. There was no end of cream, butter and cheese made from summer grass milk. Juicy, tender bacon and smoked ham were served at nearly every meal, either on their own or chopped into salads and savory dishes. There were always abundant vegetables from the kitchen garden, and ripe fruit from the orchards.
Lisa Kleypas (Hello Stranger (The Ravenels, #4))
When I plan a menu I consider color, texture, taste, and balance: Color: A red vegetable next to a yellow one looks unappetizing. Two white ones, like celery and cauliflower, look awful. Texture: Creamed chicken with mashed potatoes makes too much mush. Always serve something crisp with something soft. Taste: Never team two sours, two sweets, or two bitters. Candied yams and cranberry sauce are both delectable, but served together they break two of these rules, color and taste contrast. Balance: Courses shouldn't be uniformly rich nor light. A too rich menu might consist of a heavy cream soup, a roast with thickened gravy and potatoes, and a heavy cream soup, a roast with thickened gravy and potatoes, and a heavy whippedcreamtopped dessert. If the main course is substantial, the first should be light, crisp and appetizing, and the dessert an airy sherbet or a compote of fresh fruit. I decide first on the main course. For a buffet for twelve there should be two warm dishes. If you're going to be a relaxed hostess choose two that can be made the day before. Most of them improve with reheating. Some of the possibilities are beef bourguignon, boned and skinned breasts of chicken in a delicate cream sauce, a shrimp-lobster-and-scallop Newburg, lamb curry with all its interesting accompaniments. With any of these, serve a large, icy bowl of crisp salad with a choice of two or three dressings in little bowls alongside. Hot dishes must be kept hot in chafing dishes or on a hot tray so that they’re just as good for the second helping. Plates should be brought warm to the buffet table just before the guests serve themselves. I like to have a complete service at each end of the table so that people won’t have to stand in line forever, and there should be an attractive centerpiece, though it can be very simple. A bowl of flowers, carefully arranged by the hostess in the afternoon, and candles—always candlelight. The first course for a buffet supper should be an eye-catching array of canapés served in the living room with the drinks. I think there should be one interesting hot thing, one at room temperature, and a bouquet of crisp raw vegetables. The raw vegetables might include slim carrot sticks, green pepper slices, scallions, little love tomatoes, zucchini wedges, radishes, cauliflowerettes, olives, and young turnips. Arrange them colorfully in a large bowl over crushed ice and offer a couple of dips for non-dieters. [...] It’s best to serve hot hors d’oevres in two batches, the second ones heating under the broiler while the first round of drinks is served. [...] After people have had their second helpings the maid clears the buffet and puts out the dessert. Some people like an elaborate ice-cream concoction — so many men like gooey, sweet things. Pander to them, and let them worry about their waistlines. Some people like to end dinner with cheese and fruit. Other two kinds — one bland and one forthright, and just ripe. French bread and crackers on the side. For diet watchers gave a pretty bowl of fresh fruits, dewy and very cold. Serve good, strong coffee in pretty demitasses and let the relaxed conversation take over.
Joan Crawford (My Way of Life)