Christmas menu for 12 people

With drinks: Charcuterie board: cured ham, salami, rillettes; Deviled eggs; Comté gougères. To start: Foie gras, toasted gingerbread and fig chutney. For the main: Beef and porcini stew with homemade mash. For the cheese course: Cheese board. For dessert: Vanilla raspberry ice cream yule log.

For 12 guests, the big picture: half-cooked foie gras (600 g), stewing beef (2.4 kg), Brie de Meaux (270 g) and vanilla ice cream (1.2 l). The full grocery list, aisle by aisle, is right above.

In two trips. Three days before, the stuff that keeps (18 items: produce, meat and seafood, dairy, pantry and frozen). Then the day before, the fresh stuff (10 items, like stewing beef, rillettes and Brie de Meaux). You'll dodge the last-minute crowds.

To sit down at 8:15 PM, the first step of the big day starts at 5:45 PM: hard-boil the eggs and make the deviled eggs. Every step of the game plan is timed backward from when you sit down to eat.

This menu is free of fish and seafood. It's not vegetarian: for a meat-free table, there's a full vegetarian menu. A kid counts as half a serving in the quantities.

Yep, from 2 to 12 guests: change the number at the top of the page, and the quantities, the grocery list, the budget and these answers all follow.