PARTIES Double the fun by dividing the chores in two

The success of a dinner party depends mainly on who is invited.
By JOHN HABICH
SCRIPPS HOWARD
A dinner party starts with a recipe for stress: equal parts strategy, preparation and last-minute crisis management.
Yet no matter how fancy the menu, how delectable the food, how stunning the centerpiece, its success will depend mainly on who is invited. One way to cut the hassle and sweeten the odds is to split the bill and find a co-host.
Putting on a dinner party with a friend splits the chores and the costs. And, if each of you invites half the guests, it doubles the fun: Everyone at the table gets to meet new people, which makes for a lively evening.
I learned this trick by accident. After leading a book-club program with novelist Alison McGhee, I discovered that she loved to cook, but rarely entertained because she lacked a dining table.
Alison and I decided to attempt a cooperative dinner party, building the menus and guest list around our complementary skills. Despite culinary snafus and social gaffes, we have developed something of a reputation as co-hosts.
We've worked our way up to managing a table of 12, crammed elbow to elbow, at my home. We always start with the guest list. First, we make sure that everyone, including us, will meet at least a few new folks.
Conversation pieces
Second, we look for shared interests from which conversation can spring: in politics, the arts, family issues, gardening or sports.
Third, we aim for the same number of men and women for the gathering. Too many of either gender throws off the dynamics.
Fourth, we pare back to make sure we have a mix of backgrounds and ages, professions and personality types, natives and imports.
We avoid the overambitious menu. Far better to give folks a great time than a great meal, and that depends more on setting the mood than setting the table. More important that the hosts be in the living room putting people at ease than in the kitchen reducing sauces.
Something fishy
We usually serve fish, but only after asking if any guests loathe or are allergic to it. (The one time we made pork, the only person we forgot to ask turned out to be Jewish and kept kosher. He got an impromptu omelet with cheese and morels.)
This time, Alison would bring marinated salmon and smother it with cracked pepper and fruit salsa. Starch would be wild rice. Sugar-snap peas, with fresh mint from the garden, would add color. To open the meal: my roasted-beet salad with toasted walnuts and Roquefort.
I found a recipe for poppy-seed angel-food cake with grapefruit curd, and decided to hog it up with buttermilk ice cream.
I made the ice cream two days ahead, roasted beets the night before, finished the cake and set the table the morning of the event. Then, just before noon, I received a call from a friend in need, and had to dash out. That cut my kitchen time, and suddenly the grapefruit curd seemed ridiculous.
Gets the raspberries
Alison said simply, "Raspberries. I'll bring them."
We trimmed vegetables and washed greens and put appetizers on trays, helped by Alison's friend Mark Seals, and my partner, Andrew Solomon.
We always make a seating plan. It forces us to consider personality dynamics, helps us visualize how to match-make friends, and keeps people who already know each other from shyly bunching up.
As always, I forbade the guests from pulling the living-room chairs into a circle. Except at a dining table, circular seating will kill the energy.
Misadventure
Alison and I kept alternating duties, one in the kitchen uncorking wine, arranging garnishes, the other in the living room warming up the welcome and refilling drinks.
Misadventures ensued. Alison knocked a jar of peppercorns off the counter; they rolled everywhere. The broiling salmon produced alarming billows of smoke.
I over salted the wild rice so much it might as well have been harvested from the Dead Sea.
No one seemed to care. Talk was lively, starting with the theater and books, and quickly moving to education policy, child-rearing and spirituality. Volunteers sprang up to help serve and clear the table between courses. The happy din didn't subside until baby-sitter deadlines approached and the crowd began to disperse, exchanging cards and phone numbers.