Host: Dinny Hall
Location: Jewellery designer Dinny's home is a loft conversion in Hoxton, where she lives with record producer/writer Joe La Palaca and Dinny's five-year-old son, Lorcan.
Cost: £420 including wine (we splashed out, the prawns were £150).
Cooking Time: Half a day.
Clearing up Time: Since everyone helped it was really quick.

Have you always liked cooking?
I was interested in cooking from a very early age. My parents loved to cook and when I was a child we used to go on family holidays to Italy and France where I saw the huge variety of fresh food available like rocket or endive, which were then a great luxury in Britain. For me cooking is another form of creativity. I like my food and my jewellery to look good and make you feel good. It's extraordinary how many designers are foodies, I think it's because there is such a visual element to preparing food. It can also be a fantastic distraction from the pressures of work.

Do you use any cookbooks?
Current food fashions don't really concern me, I've got the Jamie Oliver cookbook but I rarely use it. Generally I don't like to follow rigid recipes. I never know what I'm going to cook. When I shop I'll have a rough idea of the overall flavours I'm in the mood for, then I'll buy lots of options and feel my way through when cooking. I don't measure anything out and I taste as I go along.

Are you a regular entertainer?
I've always cooked for hordes of people. At university I would often whip up a risotto at four in the morning for my friends. Nowadays I generally invite people whom I know well because I like to be relaxed. I never repeat the same dinner party dishes twice; I tend to do them, enjoy them, and forget them. There is a certain dread involved in having dinner parties, there's always an initial panic but once people have arrived it's always such a pleasure.

What about the preparations for tonight?
Most of the food was bought at Selfridges Food Hall. It's fantastic for unusual ingredients so sometimes I pop in on the way back from my Pilates class. But really I'm a Waitrose girl, though I do enjoy Spitalfields market, and I often go to the farmers' market on Camden Passage. I've splashed out on tonight, as the prawns are expensive but could easily be replaced by salmon. I decided against having a sit down meal. Mingling is far more casual and you don't have to sit next to the same person. Barbecues are good for that because they are not that formal and my flat is perfect as it has a sheltered balcony which allows me to have barbecues all year round - even on rainy nights like tonight.

What is on the menu tonight?
Food should be eclectic and lead from one taste to another but there should always be a central thread throughout the meal. Fish is the theme in this case. My dinners are usually influenced by the places I've been to and this meal brings back memories of Ko Lanta. I went there with Joe two weeks ago and I got very inspired by Thai cooking.

A Thai-inspired feast for 10 people: smoked duck, sizzling prawns, asparagus in lime

Recipes all serve 10 people

Starters: Warm Salad of Rocolla, red cabbage and smoked duck

250 grams of Rocolla
3 baby red cabbages, very finely chopped (alternatively 1/2 a small cabbage)
3 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and cut into smallish pieces
3-4 smoked duck breasts depending on size, with fat removed and cubed into approximately 2cm pieces

Marinade for the duck

1 tbsp Hoisin sauce
1 tbsp roasted pumpkin seed oil
1 small bunch of basil leaves, chopped
1 tbsp of Teriaki sauce

Stir all these ingredients together, add to duck and marinate for several hours

Salad Dressing

Combine 1 walnut oil to 1/2 bilberry red wine vinegar
2 pinches of Malvern sea salt
2 tsps of date syrup

Take care to dress the salad very lightly. I like to prepare it individually on each bowl: in a bed of Rocolla sprinkle the red cabbage and arrange the chopped apple over the top. Drizzle the dressing over the salad. In a lightly-greased wok, stir fry the duck on a hot heat. Cook for about 4-5 minutes. Drain juice ,top the salad with the hot duck and serve.

Main Course: Barbecued Giant Prawns

The prawns must be raw and as large as you can find with their shells on.

30 giant prawns (3 per person).
Marinade for the prawns
6 lime leaves cut into thin strips
6 cloves of garlic crushed
3 bunches of spring onion chopped finely
1 1/2 square inches of galangal
4 tbsp Thai fish sauce
4 tbsp sweet soy sauce (Indonesian)
4 tbsp toasted sesame oil
4-5 limes juiced
2 tbsp of date syrup
2 tbsp of rice oil
1 small cup of chopped coriander
1 red chilli finely chopped (the larger, milder sort)

Wash the prawns. Arrange on a large dish so that the marinade seeps through the shell. Leave for several hours in the fridge. Spoon marinade on prawns and flash cook on grill or barbecue: very large prawns take 4 and a half minutes each side.

Coconut Rice

1kg Basmati or fragrant Thai rice
850mls coconut milk
Malvern salt to taste
4 tbsp white sesame seeds
rice or groundnut oil for frying

Crush the sesame seeds and two pinches of salt. Fry quickly in oil, stirring constantly. Cook the rice in the coconut milk adding enough water to reach 1? inches above the level of the rice, add salt to taste and bring to the boil. Simmer for just less the 20 minutes. You should not need to drain. Add sesame seeds and serve.

Asparagus in lime, butter and garlic

1 lime, juiced
55g butter
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
Maldon sea salt

Steam or boil asparagus. Melt the butter, add crushed garlic and then the lime juice and pour over the asparagus and serve.

Dessert

Fruit salad of nectarine, strawberry, raspberry in cranberry and a dash of dessert wine with mango ice cream (Häagen-Dazs)

Wine

I bought 12 bottles at Majestic: Chateau de Sours Rosé 2000 £6.99, Chateau Meana Rosé 2000 £5.99, Orvieto Classico Mortaro £4.49, Pinot Noir Ribeauville 1999 £5.99, Chass Montrachet Clos St. Jean Premier Cru 1998 £22.29, Chass Montrachet Fonbine- Gagnard Premier Cru 1997 £19.99, Meursault 1998 £14.99