Livre d'Or

To be fair 'on a whim' isn't quite accurate. I started basking in the compliments people paid my cooking at about 6 or 7, considered going to culinary school instead of university, decided that that wasn't going to be as much fun long term and I should stick to amateur, gave my first dinner party at 19, with multiple courses and pretty clothes, decided that was so much fun we should keep doing it, did so for the next 7 or 8 years, got married, moved into a smaller house and somehow stopped cooking anything more complicated than Thanksgiving/3 or 4 course romantic dinners, but still did those occasionally; in particular, the intervening years of ice cream practice really paid off, that was my best sorbet ever; and then as we started focussing on what sort of socialising I like, and as our house started to become presentable again, I remembered that I really miss being the sort of person who gives dinner parties and wanted to regain that.