Spring garden party guide

Get into the spirit of spring with a party full of fun, frills and flowers

Spring is a fantastic time of the year for eating, flirting and entertaining, and for celebrating with friends. The foods below are what you should be looking out for at the moment to put a spring into your entertaining.

1. Globe artichokes, especially the smaller, purple ones. once you’ve set your table, place an artichoke on each person’s serviette. Upon being seated, ask each person to pull the leaves off till they get to the heart. This will give your guests something interesting to do. Whip the hearts away and fry them until they’re still crunchy.

2. While you are frying the hearts, serve up some new season’s asparagus. Choose any colour you like, just eat it like mad either raw or cooked. These delectable shoots from the lily family are at their peak from now till December.

A tall asparagus cooker is the best thing. If you felt like it, you could have made asparagus rolls, which you’ve spread with horseradish cream in advance. Now fry them lightly till just golden.

3. Serve the artichoke hearts, which can be eaten without cutlery. Artichokes are a thistle and taste mild and nutty. It’s really good to taste things on their own, not mixed up with other food. However, the hearts would also be delicious with lemon mayonnaise.

4. Spring lamb is a succulent delicacy. The flavour is very subtle, so it cannot be covered with anything distracting – except maybe lemon thyme and olive oil. My favourite way of cooking a leg of lamb is to roast it till it’s pink in the middle, then slice it from top to bottom rather than across.

That way everyone gets a perfect slice with fat on the outside, well cooked at the edge and pink at the bone. Tell the kids to go outside and pick some mint. Sprinkle it all over the lamb slices with a pinch of cumin and lemon juice.

5. Have a simple green salad on the same plate as the lamb, to cleanse the palate.

6. Fresh spring goat cheeses – spring milk is sweeter than the rest of the year and the cheeses reflect this. We are making a lot more goat cheese now and the soft, slightly lemony, floral flavour is heavenly just on its own on, drizzled with honey or jam. This idea cleverly gets rid of dessert.

Setting the scene
1. Put on Peggy Lee’s It Might as Well Be Spring and get the kids to make daisy chains for everyone.

2. Lay the table with a white cloth and place lots of little water glasses full of spring flowers. Place a branch of leaves down the middle of the table.

3. You can use one dinner plate for the whole meal, and have bread to wipe your plate between courses. Mr not. I prefer to have the taste of the earlier courses still on the plate.

4. Have warm finger bowls with a slice of lemon in them for finger washing. Don’t let the dog drink it.