This year, Eater’s holiday dinner party focuses on just the best parts: dips and dessert
All you need for a holiday party is a bunch of dips and desserts working together
For the fourth and final course of Eater’s 2024 dinner party series, we’re serving up, what else, the holidays. But, look: We just did Thanksgiving. Many of us, in fact, are likely still in various stages of recovery from it. So instead of celebrating with another big, intricate feast, we decided to scale down the labor in order to scale up the joy. We did this by distilling the holidays down to the two food groups that tend to most reliably invoke joy in people: dips and desserts, the book ends of a meal that by all rights should be the meal itself.
And here they are. You’ll find recipes for three of our favorite dips — Funyons and sour cream, curried squash, and pimento cheese — along with five-spice chocolate mousse, hot butterscotch, and Paola Velez’s famous chocolate chip thick’ems. You’ll also find a convincing argument for why a small tin of caviar will make you the world’s best party guest, an ode to the frosty beauty of frozen store-bought cream puffs, and a guide to semi-homemade desserts that work well for both the holidays and the rest of the year. And, of course, you’ll find a dip bowl shopping guide, because what’s a dinner party without accessories? Think of this as our way to end the year on a blessedly mellow note — garnished with a dash of flash because ‘tis, after all, the season. — Rebecca Flint Marx, Eater at Home editor
