Planning Your Birthday Party Food Supplies
The nature of your party will help you decide what party food supplies you need. Plates and forks are the absolute bare minimum you will need but the type of food you are serving, the age of the guests and the formality of your table will have a significant bearing on the food supplies you need. Let’s consider the possibilities.
Cake and Punch: These parties are often simple affairs like children’s birthday parties or little office parties given to celebrate an employment anniversary. Generally only cake and punch or coffee is served at such affairs. In addition to the plates and forks, you will need napkins, cups for hot or cold beverages and cake cutting knife with which you can cut and serve the cake. If you are serving ice for your drinks, you will need an ice bucket and ice tongs.
Dinner Parties: Dinner parties can run the gamut from casual to formal. Beyond the basic plates and utensils, you will also need to use serving bowls and platters, serving utensils and separate plates for various courses such salad, main course, dessert and bread. If you are serving soup, you will need soup bowls, a soup tureen and ladle. Disposable items make clean up a breeze but for more formal occasions are less impressive.
Leftovers: Often there are leftovers following a party. These can be divided up and sent home with guests or packaged and saved for use another day. If you plan to send food home with guests, such as extra pieces of cake, you will need to provide food containers. Disposable plastic containers of food quality boxes likes those used for Chinese takeout are perfect for this. However, if you plan to keep your leftover cake, you can cut it into sections that you can serve to your own family as dessert following dinner on other days. Set it on a plate and freeze it unwrapped for a couple of hours. This will allow you to handle and wrap it without the icing being totally destroyed. Then remove it and wrap it in foil or place it in plastic freezer containers.
For more information check out our Party Foods Supplies.