Feeding a crowd

Seattle restaurateur Tom Douglas thinks big when it comes to family meals.

For chef Tom Douglas, owner of Seattle's lauded Palace Kitchen, Dahlia Lounge and Etta's Seafood, cooking for a crowd is as natural as waking up in the morning. Now, the winner of multiple James Beard Awards shares his expertise with the rest of us in his new cookbook, "Tom's Big Dinners: Big-Time Home Cooking for Family and Friends" (William Morrow, $32.50). With the holiday season upon us, we spoke with Douglas, 45, about the art and craft of constructing dinner parties:

What is a "big dinner," anyway?
To some people, cooking for two is a big deal. I grew up in a family with seven brothers and sisters, and we had a big dinner every night -- 12 people at the table with the grandmas. To me, a big dinner is 15 or 20 people.

Can you put out a mega-meal and still enjoy the party?
Well, my No. 1 goal is to actually have dinner with my friends. Oftentimes, people get stuck in the kitchen, so it's organizing dinner in a way I can spend most of the time at the table.

How?
I take shortcuts so I don't have to spend hours cooking. If [it's] a taco dinner, scope out a restaurant that makes good tortillas. Buy them ahead of time, and take your time making a spicy shrimp filling.

Advice for the novice host?
Get your guests involved. Whenever you invite people, they almost always ask, "What can I bring?" One of the big mistakes is to say, "Nothing." It's fun to get people involved. When you have people bring willy-nilly, you get things that don't really fit together. ... Say, "Hey, I'm doing this thing out of Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking". If you could do the salad from page 52, that would be great!"

Rearrange this
Most of us can't land the Fab 5 for a freebie home makeover. But for a relatively small fee, you can hire a pro to simply rearrange your stuff, with stunning results. "We don't pass judgment on what you own," says Dallas-based arranger Lisa Billings, who founded the Interior Arrangement and Design Association in 1995. "We don't make anyone cry." Arrangers charge a fraction of the thousands an interior designer would cost. Unlike designers, arrangers let the room be their guide. "We strip a space and start with a clean slate," Billings says. "We study a room's architecture, determine a focal point and start bringing items back in. It's like a jigsaw puzzle." To find an arranger near you, call 214-826-2474 or go to interiorarrangement.org.

Contributing: Laura Daily, Michele Hatty