Weeknote #25 [W26.12] - First housewarming party, fake deadline, and an incoherent menu

Housewarming party as a fake deadline to get things done

I hosted my first house warming party on the 22nd.

I needed to get it done because I would have kept procrastinating on a lot of decisions otherwise.

I’m sure I would have left multiple unopened boxes lying around if not for the pressure of making things look good for the party.

The date for the house warming party acted as a very useful fake deadline. It helped me fast track a lot of decisions which I would have normally spent a lot of time overthinking about.

Although my mind understands the benefits of satisficing over optimizing, its natural instinct is still towards optimizing. A common side-effect of which is decision paralysis.

All that goes away, however, with a deadline in sight.

Because I had invited people on 22nd, it forced me organize my pantry and get my kitchen operational. I also needed somewhere for people to sit, which meant buying a sofa. I needed better lighting too, which meant getting lamps (instead of relying on some truly atrocious green-coloured overhead lighting).

Large vs. small groups

Another decision I needed to make was whom and how many people to invite.

I realized I have made a lot of friends and acquaintances in the city over the last 3 years. So there was a choice to be made: either have a large party with a lot of people, or smaller groups of people spread over multiple parties.

The obvious option was to invite everyone and get it done with in one go. But I sided with the latter option. I feel a lot more at ease in smaller groups of up to 5-6 people compared to larger groups.

More importantly, it is also easier to cook for less people (to me, there’s no point to hosting a party if I don’t get to cook).

Anyhow, I do want to try hosting a larger party at some point, to see how that would feel like. Just not now.

Planning a very incoherent menu

I was so occupied unpacking things and assembling IKEA furniture, I got very little time to consider what to cook.

There’s a shop near my place that sells duck. So the first thing I got was that. I had no idea about what to do with it though, because I had never prepared duck before.

So I decided to add three things which I knew would work well — a soup, beef porridge, and an orange and poppyseed cake.

The original plan was a potato and leek soup. But I couldn’t find enough leek anywhere — in the market or online — so I had to scratch that out. I replaced it with a pumpkin soup because that was easier to source (in retrospect, a mushroom soup might have been a better choice).

Then I realized I had to add something without meat for the main course because not everyone invited liked meat. Which led to the addition of a mushroom ragu with spaghetti.

And finally, for the duck, I decided to go with a tried and tested coconut milk curry recipe — which, so far, has worked with every type of meat (fish, prawns, chicken) or vegetable (chickpeas, mushroom) I’ve tried.

The final menu looked like this:

• Spiced pumpkin soup
• Mushroom ragu, with spaghetti
• Beef porridge
• Duck, in coconut milk curry
• Orange and poppyseed cake

All the items in the menu turned out quite nice individually. But in terms of coherence as a meal overall, I’d have to rate it a 0/10.