I can see them even now. My mother with her hair done up in a sweep and her earrings catching the candlelight, my father stirring a pitcher of martinis and laughing, almost spilling the booze at someone's joke, and their friends, eating, talking and singing songs at one of their famous dinner parties. Oh they knew how to live!

When my parents got ready to throw a dinner party back then, they cleaned house for days, arguing over neglected heaps of stuff that had to be sorted through. They made us clean our rooms, sweeping aside our protests that their guests would never go in there. Then we had to rake the yard, sweep the driveway and clean the windows. Sometimes they'd have the carpets cleaned - whatever it took to make the house ship-shape. My father was, after all, a naval officer.

The refrigerator was cleaned out and restocked with food. China plates were counted and silverware was polished. They bought tons of candles and filled all the hurricane lamps with oil. (Only candles and lamps would light the house on party nights - no glaring electric bulbs.) Bags of ice were hauled in. It was as if they were shoring up to face a natural disaster. Then they made a trip to the liquor store to stock the bar.

On the night of the party, the kitchen was filled with good smells, one of my mother's curries, maybe, or shrimp Creole, simmering on the stove. The guests began to arrive and we were bustled upstairs and kept out of sight - until we sneaked back to spy from the stairway or snitch drinks and hors d'oeuvres. Even though we weren't invited, all of us kids thought party nights were fun.

Those parties were in the '60s and '70s, and the ebb and flow of getting the house ready for a dinner party two or three times a year seemed as normal as the changing of the seasons. I thought everyone did that kind of thing. And naturally, I assumed that, when I was grown up and had a home of my own, I would throw parties just like those. But now here I am, ostensibly all grown up, and I have to say, I've never had a party like that.

Maybe those parties were a product of the era, or maybe my parents and their friends were bolder or more prosperous than we are. Maybe it's because I'm a chef and hosting a dinner party would be a kind of busman's holiday. (And being a chef, I don't get a lot of dinner invitations; people are afraid to cook for me.) For whatever reason, dinner parties at my house tend to be tamer than my parents' parties were, and they usually seem to have a purpose - like celebrating a birthday or entertaining co-workers.

Not long ago, though, my wife and I were stricken with the dinner-party bug. It was winter and the days had grown dim. The routine of kids to school, Dad to work, dogs to walk, was growing dreary. And besides, Betsy had given me a set of old Limoges china she found at a barn sale, and we wanted to show it off. We had visions of candlelight, friends, food and wine. And before we could talk ourselves out of it, I called and made the invitations - once committed, I knew we would have to forge ahead.

The spirit of my parents possessed me. We cleaned out the 'fridge. We made the boys clean their room. We bought candles. We talked about the menu. That was when my feet began to get a little cold. I had invited one of the best chefs I know. What would I serve? I had also invited friends whose home I had never seen. Our house's best feature is the garden, but it was winter, and by the time these guests arrived, it would be too dark for them to see the garden anyway. Bottom line, how could we possibly expect real people to dine in the middle of this menagerie of kids, snakes, birds, dogs and goldfish?

Oh well, I thought, what's the worst that can happen? Then we started planning the menu. Even though it was winter, a few things were still coming out of the garden: sage leaves we could fry, dried white beans, kale. In the end, we settled on a kind of tasting menu, something I might serve at the restaurant, course after course. I made a list, did the shopping, then made another list of what had to be done. I spent all day in the kitchen. I roasted chestnuts and peeled them for soup. I baked cookies. I boned little chickens for the main course and transformed their bones into stock for the sauce. I juiced pomegranates for sorbet, and zested little oranges to make a sauce for scallops. In cooking classes, I always tell people to make as much as possible ahead of time. But for my own party, I have to admit, I made everything at the last minute.

When the guests arrived, we served them caviar on buckwheat blini, those tiny little pancakes that are only at their best for about a minute after they're cooked. There were oysters, too, with frozen raspberry mignonette, made with raspberries from the garden. I shucked the oysters while the boys flipped the blini. They squeezed crÁeme fraÂiche from a plastic bag onto the little pancakes and dolloped on the caviar. At 7 and 11, my boys consider flipping pancakes and squeezing stuff out of a bag about as much fun as anything.

Homemade rolls came out of the oven. The kids ate chicken and peas and rolls, and went to bed. The grown-ups moved on to the dining room for roast chestnut soup and dry sherry. (An attempt was made at this point to banish the dogs, but they ended up under the table where they managed to coax a crust of bread from one of the guests.) Then came scallops, seared with mandarin orange butter and mizuna from the garden.

I put on a CD of Ella and Louis. "The snow is snowing, the wind is blowing, but I can weather the storm ..." And we had pomegranate sorbet. Red wine was poured and we ate the little hens filled with mushroom forcemeat and nested on a bed of white beans and sautÀeed kale. Finally, we moved to the living room for cookies and Moroccan mint tea. The dogs and the guests were mingling freely by now, and in the glow of the lamplight, the house looked charming, almost magical, really. Then, because we live on an island, and because the ferries run on time, the guests had to go.

Somehow, we had pulled it off. My wife and I poured ourselves another glass of wine and munched on the last of the cookies. If I had to do it over, I might have left the beans off the chicken plate; they seemed too coarse. I would have put more mizuna on the plate with the scallops. I might have put the music on a little sooner. All in all, though, it had been a good night. Even with all the dirty dishes, pots and pans, the house was cleaner when the guests left than it had been in weeks, and Betsy and I felt different. Grown up, maybe.

Greg Atkinson, Canlis executive chef, is the author of "In Season" (1997) and "The Northwest Essentials Cookbook" (1999) from Sasquatch Books.