College parties aren’t all about kegs of beer and passed-out freshmen. You can have a casual get-together with a touch of class if you just follow my lead.
Pasta parties are among the easiest to throw. The concept is simple: Boil water, add pasta, strain, cover with heated sauce and parmesan. Ask your guests to bring something to add to the meal – garlic bread, salad, alternative sauces and wine. I always ask my guests to bring dessert, and there’s usually so much left over that I can eat it for lunch and dinner for a week after the party.
The maximum number of guests I’ve had at a pasta party is around 20, but that’s only because of the constraints of apartment living. Wherever you live, you should only invite as many people as you can serve. Just be sure to have enough plates, forks and utensils for dinner and dessert, and that you have serving spoons and drinking vessels galore.
I serve the food buffet-style so that everyone can grab a plate and some silverware and dish up his or her own meal. Since my table only seats four, people sit on the couch, floor and miscellaneous chairs around the living room. You can do whatever works best for your space – just keep in mind that people want to be comfortable while they eat, so having a pool-themed pasta party with guests eating pasta and sitting on blow-up rafts in the water may not be the best idea.
Although the moniker “”pasta party”” implies that this is a dinner party, don’t be surprised if your guests want to stick around for a few hours after eating. I always pull out the “”Would you rather?”” book during dinner, which spices up a time that would otherwise be silent except for the sound of fork tines scraping plates.
The only downside to such a pleasant get-together? Cleaning up thousands of dishes afterwards.