Introduction
So, you don’t have a ski chalet in Aspen, summer in East Hampton or Newport, jet off to Anguilla or Saint Tropéz (nor are confident that you can pronounce these correctly), or know any celebrities, you can still entertain in fine fashion, and have a lot of fun doing so. The information in this book will help you entertain practically, successfully, enjoyably and more easily, at home, restaurants, bars, or anywhere else.
Extravagant entertaining, the subject of many other books associated with party-planning, usually requires the help of a cadre of professionals at a considerable expense. If you can afford to entertain lavishly, the purchase of this book will be an inconsequential cost for you, and it will certainly be quite helpful, too. For the rest of us, it will help provide the knowledge, guidelines and tools that will greatly aid in the planning, provisioning, preparation and hosting. Providing these, we hope to encourage you to entertain, not just more effortlessly, but also more frequently.
This book will be beneficial to anyone interested in entertaining, from the novice to the experienced party planner. You don’t have to be a natural host to entertain in fine fashion. If you feel lacking in that innate ability, this book will aid in imparting the skills and instilling the confidence for you to host more effectively. If you are in your early adulthood, we want to help you move beyond the entertaining typical of your age group. For guys, this has seemingly long consisted of getting a keg, or more than enough beer that would fit into a couple coolers, having the requisite supplies for shots, and inviting as many young women, with hopefully morally-casual attitudes, that you knew. For women, the fear of having to create attractive decorations and décor, or the feeling that your current home is not quite up to snuff, too often leads to inaction. In addition to providing the basic information necessary for planning most any social event, there is also a lot of good stuff about food, wine, liquor, beer and entertaining supplies and accessories, much of which will be helpful to even the most practiced party host. Almost anyone can use this book to improve their knowledge and skills in planning social events.
More specifically, what this book is useful for:
• Get-togethers from the intimate to the not-so intimate.
• Both purely social and business-related functions.
• Finding an excuse to plan a get-together.
• Providing tips on types, brands and amounts of alcoholic beverages.
• Providing suggestions for supplies to purchase.
• Providing help for stocking necessary barware and kitchenware.
• Easy-to-use and tasty recipes ideally suited for social events.
• Easy-to-follow and popular cocktails that you will actually make, not just for a single glass, but also for pitchers and blenders.
• Providing tools, guidelines, information and vocabulary to entertain more successfully.
• Providing information that you will help decipher restaurant menus, wine labels, cookbooks, and along the aisles of your local liquor store.
• Helpful resources for planning events.
Conversely, in the attempt at nearly full disclosure, what this book is not useful for:
• Huge, Gatsby-esque parties; overly elaborate and expensive events featuring extravagant decorations. If you can afford to entertain on the grand scale, you can find a party planner for these types of events. This book will help you with the events that you plan yourself.
• Weddings, as these are a unique and involved celebration for which there is a plethora of information already available.
• Family-centered holiday celebrations such as Thanksgiving and Christmas. You can find help within your family for this. There is no family counseling in this book.
• Cookie Cutter Party Templates – Each event is different.
This book names names and provides lists of recommended brands of accessories and supplies when helpful, and some of the stores and sites where these can be found. We also provide suggestions for the most useful types and labels of beers, wines and liquors for entertaining with an eye on value, since you will be purchasing for a group. You might notice some regional and personal biases throughout the book, as we draw on our experiences and knowledge base. Our aim is that it will enhance the value of the book by providing personal know-how. When this occurs you might want to consider your similar regional or personal preferences that might replace or complement our possibly colored suggestions.
We intend that this guide will be informative, easy-to-use, nearly comprehensive, and sometimes even humorous. Though this book is not a bar guide, a wine book, a book on beer, or a cookbook, it has a good amount of useful information about liquor and cocktails, wine, beer, food, and recipes useful for groups that will help you successfully entertain again and again.
Since this is a self-help book of sorts, it’s not meant to be read as a novel from beginning to end in quick succession. Those who feel they need a lot of help or encouragement should thoroughly read the first part, The Social Event Life Cycle. For the rest, just pick out the section, chapter, or lists that can help. Hopefully, in piece-meal fashion, and with an occasional chuckle, you will eventually get through the entire book. The book is divided among four major parts, which are informative for different purposes:
Part I - The Party Plan – These are steps that you’ll need to follow when putting together most social events.
Part II - Background – These are topics related to entertaining that are good to know, information on specific types of events, and food and drink recipes that you might want to employ for your parties.
Part III - Glossary – These are mostly food and drink terms that you might want to become familiar with, as these are found in many cookbooks, menus and in articles about food, wine and entertaining, not to mention on cocktail menus or bar shelves.
Part IV - References – This section includes information on useful and fun topics, and quick reference guides.
Though we have plenty of experience planning various types of social events, both professionally and personally, we are not speaking ex cathedra on the subject, nor do we pretend to be the panjandrums of parties. Unlike many books on entertaining, we don’t provide specific templates or detailed menus for parties, since these are seemingly never put into practice by readers. As there are many ways to skin a cat (as is said for some reason), there are also many ways to have fun in groups, and we hope that our ideas and recommendations will be helpful in getting you to entertain more successfully, more easily, more enjoyably, and more often.
Extravagant entertaining, the subject of many other books associated with party-planning, usually requires the help of a cadre of professionals at a considerable expense. If you can afford to entertain lavishly, the purchase of this book will be an inconsequential cost for you, and it will certainly be quite helpful, too. For the rest of us, it will help provide the knowledge, guidelines and tools that will greatly aid in the planning, provisioning, preparation and hosting. Providing these, we hope to encourage you to entertain, not just more effortlessly, but also more frequently.
This book will be beneficial to anyone interested in entertaining, from the novice to the experienced party planner. You don’t have to be a natural host to entertain in fine fashion. If you feel lacking in that innate ability, this book will aid in imparting the skills and instilling the confidence for you to host more effectively. If you are in your early adulthood, we want to help you move beyond the entertaining typical of your age group. For guys, this has seemingly long consisted of getting a keg, or more than enough beer that would fit into a couple coolers, having the requisite supplies for shots, and inviting as many young women, with hopefully morally-casual attitudes, that you knew. For women, the fear of having to create attractive decorations and décor, or the feeling that your current home is not quite up to snuff, too often leads to inaction. In addition to providing the basic information necessary for planning most any social event, there is also a lot of good stuff about food, wine, liquor, beer and entertaining supplies and accessories, much of which will be helpful to even the most practiced party host. Almost anyone can use this book to improve their knowledge and skills in planning social events.
More specifically, what this book is useful for:
• Get-togethers from the intimate to the not-so intimate.
• Both purely social and business-related functions.
• Finding an excuse to plan a get-together.
• Providing tips on types, brands and amounts of alcoholic beverages.
• Providing suggestions for supplies to purchase.
• Providing help for stocking necessary barware and kitchenware.
• Easy-to-use and tasty recipes ideally suited for social events.
• Easy-to-follow and popular cocktails that you will actually make, not just for a single glass, but also for pitchers and blenders.
• Providing tools, guidelines, information and vocabulary to entertain more successfully.
• Providing information that you will help decipher restaurant menus, wine labels, cookbooks, and along the aisles of your local liquor store.
• Helpful resources for planning events.
Conversely, in the attempt at nearly full disclosure, what this book is not useful for:
• Huge, Gatsby-esque parties; overly elaborate and expensive events featuring extravagant decorations. If you can afford to entertain on the grand scale, you can find a party planner for these types of events. This book will help you with the events that you plan yourself.
• Weddings, as these are a unique and involved celebration for which there is a plethora of information already available.
• Family-centered holiday celebrations such as Thanksgiving and Christmas. You can find help within your family for this. There is no family counseling in this book.
• Cookie Cutter Party Templates – Each event is different.
This book names names and provides lists of recommended brands of accessories and supplies when helpful, and some of the stores and sites where these can be found. We also provide suggestions for the most useful types and labels of beers, wines and liquors for entertaining with an eye on value, since you will be purchasing for a group. You might notice some regional and personal biases throughout the book, as we draw on our experiences and knowledge base. Our aim is that it will enhance the value of the book by providing personal know-how. When this occurs you might want to consider your similar regional or personal preferences that might replace or complement our possibly colored suggestions.
We intend that this guide will be informative, easy-to-use, nearly comprehensive, and sometimes even humorous. Though this book is not a bar guide, a wine book, a book on beer, or a cookbook, it has a good amount of useful information about liquor and cocktails, wine, beer, food, and recipes useful for groups that will help you successfully entertain again and again.
Since this is a self-help book of sorts, it’s not meant to be read as a novel from beginning to end in quick succession. Those who feel they need a lot of help or encouragement should thoroughly read the first part, The Social Event Life Cycle. For the rest, just pick out the section, chapter, or lists that can help. Hopefully, in piece-meal fashion, and with an occasional chuckle, you will eventually get through the entire book. The book is divided among four major parts, which are informative for different purposes:
Part I - The Party Plan – These are steps that you’ll need to follow when putting together most social events.
Part II - Background – These are topics related to entertaining that are good to know, information on specific types of events, and food and drink recipes that you might want to employ for your parties.
Part III - Glossary – These are mostly food and drink terms that you might want to become familiar with, as these are found in many cookbooks, menus and in articles about food, wine and entertaining, not to mention on cocktail menus or bar shelves.
Part IV - References – This section includes information on useful and fun topics, and quick reference guides.
Though we have plenty of experience planning various types of social events, both professionally and personally, we are not speaking ex cathedra on the subject, nor do we pretend to be the panjandrums of parties. Unlike many books on entertaining, we don’t provide specific templates or detailed menus for parties, since these are seemingly never put into practice by readers. As there are many ways to skin a cat (as is said for some reason), there are also many ways to have fun in groups, and we hope that our ideas and recommendations will be helpful in getting you to entertain more successfully, more easily, more enjoyably, and more often.
