Entertain without strain

This is not so much a recipe, as it is a secret trick of caterers: no-one at parties pays attention to what the food tastes like, they only look at the plate. Spend 50% of your budget on your serving platters, 10% on food and 40% on booze. You can serve anyone frozen pigs in a blanket from a warehouse club if you put them on a pretty plate with fancy mustard in little bowl. Translate the name into French, Italian or Thai and you can get away with anything. Pigs in a blanket become Saucissons en Croute. Mini-quiches become, well, Quiche au Jambon (ham) / Bacon (duh) / Oignon (onion). Grilled chicken on wooden skewers with a dipping sauce of peanut butter mixed with soy sauce are Chicken Satays. Stick the non-chicken loaded end of the stick into a block of floral foam that you have put into a dish. Put plastic flowers or grass in first that are shorter than the satay sticks. Everyone likes shrimp cocktail, and you can buy a huge bag of pre-cooked frozen shrimp for next to nothing. Again, put it on shaved ice in a nice glass bowl and suddenly you're a genius. Take the sauce out of the jar and put it into something pretty. Make a cheese platter out of a cutting board with red & green grapes and those red cabbage leaves. Put strawberries on it even though people don't eat them when they're next to cheese.

You don't have to be a good cook to become known for good holiday parties. Just make sure there's enough booze for people to not notice the food, and be sure to throw out the boxes from the freezer section before the guests arrive. Have good music and pretty women in abundance. Follow the reheating directions on the boxes. Take a shower ahead of time. Enjoy the festivities but don't drive drunk! Happy Holidays everybody!