- 1). Send out invitations to the guests featuring the colors of the Italian flag -- green, white and red -- or using immediately recognizable Italian graphics such as the Leaning Tower of Pisa or a Venetian gondolier.
- 2). Set the party mood with a compilation of Italian music playing in the background. Light some candles. You might want to also hang up some pictures or posters of Italy.
- 3). Serve your guests red wines imported from Italy like Chianti or Barolo, or for a more local option, any good red wine will do. You could also serve glasses of red vermouth with ice and a slice of lemon. After dinner, offer your guests shot glasses of lemoncello, Italian lemon liqueur.
- 4). Serve Italian appetizers like cantaloupe slices wrapped with prosciutto ham; cured olives; or bruschetta, grilled slices of bread that have been rubbed with raw garlic and topped with diced tomato, basil, olive oil, salt, and pepper.
- 5). Serve both grilled meat and pasta for filling entrees. For the meat, try veal in Marsala wine sauce, grilled sausages with tomato sauce or bell peppers, or lamb chops with garlic and rosemary. For the pasta, you can't go wrong with spinach lasagna, butternut squash ravioli with a thyme butter sauce or fettuccine noodles slathered in an alfredo cream sauce.
- 6). Serve a side dish like grilled asparagus, fried zucchini slices, sauteed mushrooms with parsley or sauteed Swiss chard.
- 7). Serve a classic Italian dessert like tiramisu made with Italian mascarpone cheese, coffee liqueur-soaked ladyfingers and a dusting of shredded chocolate and cocoa powder. You could also serve pannacotta, individual Italian-style flans, or Sicilian cannoli, individual hard pastries filled with a sweet ricotta mixture. If you prefer something simpler, you can serve scoops of gelato.