Are you ready to simplify your fall hosting while still impressing your guests, whether for holidays, potlucks, or casual dinners with friends? Fall gatherings can be overwhelming, from multi-course holiday dinners to last-minute potlucks. This episode provides you with 4 easy yet sophisticated menus with recipes and hosting tips, so you can delight your guests without stress. Whether you're hosting for Rosh Hashanah, going to a tailgate, or just cooking a casual dinner at home, this episode helps you create a relaxed, festive vibe in your kitchen.  By the end of this episode, you will learn how to: 1. Create stunning yet low-effort appetizers that can be assembled in advance, and made almost entirely with store-bought ingredients.  2. Choose a main course that will impress guests, like a seasonal salad by Ottolenghi that’s hearty enough to be a main, studded with fresh herbs and jewel-like pomegranate seeds, or a delicious one-pot braised beef and aromatic rice dish  3. Enjoy the comfort of make-ahead desserts, like Kari’s crowd-pleasing chocolate sheet cake that travels well, or the spiced cookies that Sonya makes that taste better the next day  Don’t miss out on this essential fall hosting episode — press play now to make your next gathering unforgettable!  *** Links to from this week’s show: Menu #1 Yotam Ottolenghi’s fig, radicchio, and hazelnut salad for the Guardian Sonya’s beef plov and plum frangipane babka  Sonya’s honey sesame cake and one-bowl tzimmes cake Menu #2 Baked brie by Ina Garten   Ottolenghi’s quinoa and fennel salad for Bon Appetit Pear slab pie with sour dried cherries from Martha Stewart Living Menu #3 Sonya’s smoked fish platter Colu Henry’s sheet pan roasted chicken with shallot and roasted grape for NYT Cooking Sonya’s apple + walnut spiced cookies in her recent Substack Menu #4 Classic cheese ball recipe from It Tastes Better From Scratch Fried chicken from your favorite place Texas Chocolate Cake from All Recipes *** We love hearing from you — follow us on Instagram @foodfriendspod, or drop us a line at [email protected]! Or give us a CALL on our kitchen phone! 323-452-9084 Sign up for Sonya’s free Substack, or order her debut cookbook Braids for more Food Friends recipes!