I contributed an article to the food issue of Ambidextrous, the design magazine of Stanford University. The assignment was to write an article about the intersection of food and design. I've always thought about throwing dinner parties as a design task, so I explained planning a dinner party in terms of the way you plan the design of a product.
Over the years, I’ve learned the following heuristics about my typical user base. With 14 dinner guests, only 11 will require chicken-of-doom. In Northern California, one person ends up vegan, and two vegetarian. Two are Jewish (no shellfish or pork), and one, despite mild alcoholism, is nominally Muslim and doesn’t eat pork either, so that rules out the bacon wrapping on the steaks. Once in a while, I have a guest who is severely allergic to eggs, gluten, and/or nuts, just to keep life interesting. Killing your guests is the opposite of entertaining, unless you happen to be Hannibal Lecter, so when in doubt about allergens, stick to tofu. Oh wait! people can be allergic to soy, too...
The Dinner Program: Throwing a dinner party with one knife, 11 militant chickens, and your design degree [PDF]. Ambidextrous, Summer 2007.