Banishing lockdown boredom (part 2)

Looking to fight the lockdown boredom? Why not look at recreate the popular Channel 4 TV show, Come Dine With Me!?

This is ideal to play as a family and contestants must prove they are the best dinner party host by cooking a three-course meal and providing entertainment before the guests rate the night out of 10.

The rules are simple:

First decide what will be your winnings. It obviously doesn’t need to be as much as Channel 4’s £1,000 prize, and as we are in quarantine you could be creative instead with something a little different to win. Or simply each put money into the prize pot, which could be as little or as much as you like.

Next decide the order of who is cooking on what night. You will each take it in tun to host a different evening.

Now you know which night is whose, you each need to decide on your menus. Just as the contestants do on the TV show, write out your three-course menu and share it around with everyone beforehand. Perhaps you could theme each night.

Then it’s the all-important cooking part of the game. Now on the TV this is recorded and played during the show, however for this lockdown version recording yourself cooking is entirely optional. Although it might be quite good fun to play back and watch as a family afterwards.

Now it’s time to welcome your guests to dinner. Remember to pull out all the stops with your table setting. Are there flowers in the garden you can use, unused napkins in a cupboard somewhere, fancy plates or any other special cutlery. How can you create the wow factor? There is a prize up for grabs remember!

The way food looks on the plate is as important as it tastes in this game, so think about how you are going to present your food when plating up each dish.

On the TV show hosts often provide entertainment at some point during dinner. Do you know any magic, or think about what music you could play, or you could opt for no entertainment at all and simply enjoy the food?

At the end of each dinner hand out home-made score cards (or pieces of paper) and get each guest to write on their score and rate the evening out of 10 in secret. These can be kept in a box until the big reveal after total scores have been counted once the last meal has been served.

Once everyone has hosted their evening one person can be responsible for adding up the scores and reveal who is the best dinner party host. Enjoy and have fun, this would be a great game to play with teens to get them cooking in the kitchen!