…dans une cuisine que vous ne connaissez pas. Si le succès du repas dépend de vous, soit ne faites que participer et évitez la cuisinière et le four, soit préparez ou recevez chez vous. J’ai failli rater mon entrée de Noël parce que la cuisinière à gaz de ma soeur chauffe moins fort qu’un mini bic jetable! CUISINEZ CHEZ VOUS (autant que faire se peut).
… cook with a stove you don’t know. If the success of a meal depends on you, either prep everything at your own place and carry it over or have the whole party there in the first place. I almost messed up my Christmas dinner because I held it at my sister’s and her stove never got hot enough! On top of that, you can never know if you’ll have the tools you’ll need. Very few people own good knives or enough of the right dishes… COOK AT HOME (if you can:0)
MY FRENCH HEAVEN 
Tout à fait vrai, c’est aussi ce que je fais.
Having cooked Christmas lunch and other meals in a beach house, I sympathise. I had to buy a rolling pin (!). I also took two bags of my own spices and seasoning…does that make me obsessive?
Not one bit! I’m the kind of guy who takes his pillows with him when he has to sleep away from home… So I’ll let you imagine what I take with me when I have to cook at someone else’s house 🙂
Knives – yes!! I have to hide a couple so my wife can’t find them or … disaster. And a couple of ‘frying pans’ – she will insist on washing well-seasoned pans with detergent or, worse, put them in the dishwasher.
That’s right! Protect your tools!!
So true! I’m used to cooking with heavy, cast iron cookware so I’m lost with anything else.
Cast iron is the best!
It is! But it does spoil you for everything else.;)
Great post!
Thanks!
Helped my daughter out with Thanksgiving dinner at her house. Oh my god I felt so out of my element. Couldn’t find a thing! Drove me crazy!
🙂
The best of advice.
🙂
I agree! I’ll be cooking for my parents for a week – hate their stove and oven. But I’m bringing all my own ingredients, seasonings, pots and pans and utensils so that will help. But their stove top, ugh.
🙂 🙂
I couldn’t agree more! 🙂
I couldn’t agree more. Every time we rent a vacation condo “all equipped” it’s a culinary disaster: Cheap dull knives, thin pots and pans that burn the food, and pathetic stoves. We no longer cook as result and just go to Whole Foods, who make outstanding gourmet food and wood-oven pizzas. I refuse to cook in strange kitchens.
On the other hand, playing Devil’s advocate, it can be a powerful psychological and even spiritual experience to be forced to go outside your comfort zone and be challenged to produce excellence from pathetic tools. Like Cartier-Bresson shooting with a Kodak Brownie instead of his Leica!
I couldn’t agree more! But still, I didn’t need that stress on Christmas eve:) It was my damn fault though:)
I agree with your rule! Sometimes it can’t be helped and then I just make sure that I choose a recipe that is not as dependent on tools and such. And sometimes I just bring my own tools 🙂
I always bring at least my knives and a few “culs de poule”:)
So sorry, Stephane–though, of course, I’m sure your cooking still wowed everyone. Wishing you a wonderful New Year!
You too my dear Tamara!!
Or, have it catered.
🙂 🙂
As someone who has had to cook at other people’s homes (even schools!) fairly often … I see the rationality of your good advice and pat myself fiuratively speaking on the back for having been so brave.— or foolhoardy. it’s amazing how inventive one has to become in cooking places/kitchens outside of one’s own! Can I let you in on a little secret that saved me more than once? Get hold of camping gas stoves, portable ones! They’re brilliant and their flame is strong! They run on little gas cylinders … Ooooh what would I have done without them! Eletric hobs, on the other hand, defeat me hands down!
That is a GREAT idea!
So true! My mother’s oven runs very hot, and nearly everything I helped make over Christmas came out a little overdone…not a total disaster, but definitely something to consider when planning a party. I definitely prefer to play hostess in our own home. =)
I’m glad it’s at least two of us in that club:)