A Whole New Way to Serve Appetizers

While researching the sheer curtain post from yesterday, I found this photo of a richly decorated hors d'oeuvres room in the Park Avenue apartment of Richard E. Berlin (he was the longtime chairman of Hearst as well as the father of Brigid Berlin, part of Warhol's inner circle). This small space- actually, I'm assuming it was small- was located just off of the dining room and was intended as an area in which to serve cocktails. I've heard of these rooms referred to as "cocktail rooms", but the term "hors d'oeuvres room" is a first for me.

Decorated in the Venetian manner by the firm Thedlow, the room featured a pair of blackamoors (both holding champagne buckets, no less) standing guard over a crystal and mirror console. Good heavens is that console dripping in overwrought glamour or what? The beige-gray walls were painted with a black balustrade at the bottom, while a painted black canopy with gold fringe framed the top of the room. It's totally over the top in a fantastical way- and that's the beauty of it.

So, what to serve as hors d'oeuvres? Well, Sausage Balls ain't gonna cut it. It has to be something fancy but tasty too. After all, guests in the Berlin home weren't wearing denim and flip-flops to imbibe in the hors d'oeuvres room. After looking through some of my old cookbooks, I found these little tidbits that seemed to be the order of the day.

*Moulded Lobster Canapes (from For The Hostess A Handbook For Entertaining)

One-half tablespoonful of finely chopped onion and three tablespoonfuls of butter are sauteed together with one-third cupful of chopped mushroom caps for five minutes. Two tablespoonfuls of flour and two-thirds of a cupful of cream are added to this, and the mixture is cooked until it thickens. One cupful of chopped lobster meat is then added with two tablespoonfuls of grated cheese and the yolks of two eggs beaten slightly. This mixture is seasoned with salt and Cayenne and piled on circular pieces of toast. Grated cheese and soft buttered bread-crumbs are sprinkled on top, and the canapes are browned in the oven.

*Czechoslovak Shells (from A Book of Hors d'Oeuvre by Lucy G. Allen)

Brush the inside of tiny shell molds with olive oil and set them in a pan of cracked ice. Place in the bottom of each a small amount of clear tomato aspic; when firm, lay in small bits of ripe olive, pimiento and green pepper, together with antipasto cut small. Set these with aspic and continue until the mold is full. Use only enough aspic to hold these pieces in place. The molds should be filled mostly with antipasto, with enough of the olive and pepper to give the required color and enough of the aspic to keep the shape. Turn these molds out, when firm, on round cuts of sauteed bread.

Thanks to Jessica and Joe...

... this post is not about entertaining like every other Tom, Dick, and Harry. I'm sure most of you have read Joe Nye's terrific new book Flair: Exquisite Invitations, Lush Flowers, and Gorgeous Table Settings. It's been by my bed for months now, and I realized that reading it before bedtime ensures sweet dreams of beautiful china, bamboo flatware (in black, no less), pink carnations- basically, my kind of dreams. The book's gorgeous table settings positively beg for good food as well. I think that Joe would agree that the right menu goes hand in hand with all of the hard work that you put into your tables.

So, that leads me to another book that I've been perusing lately- Jessica Daves' The Vogue Book of Menus and Recipes. (That's Daves, above, in that black and white photo.) The 1964 cookbook and menu planning guide is, well, a bit dated, but food dates about the same way that curtains and lamp shades do- not well. That said, I do think it's a shame that Chicken in Tarragon Aspic is no longer a favorite on today's party menus. It sounds delicious to me.

I decided to plan a few pretend parties using photos from Joe's book and matching them to a menu from the Vogue book. I could have gone really retro with the menus but rather chose the ones that seem appropriate for today's palates. I realize that many of you will never make aspic, but cucumber boats with crab and mayonnaise doesn't sound too terribly difficult to make. What do you think?

Cocktails

Menu
Eggs Stuffed with Red Caviar

Roquefort Pecans

Finger Sandwiches of Smoked Turkey on White Bread

Cucumber Boats filled with Crabmeat and Mayonnaise

Tiny Hot Finger Rolls filled with Bacon Crumbles

A Ladies Luncheon

Menu

Cold Cucumber Soup

Vitello Tonnato

Cold Rice

Sliced Tomatoes and Herb Dressing

Peach Ice Cream

Hot Macaroons

The Wine: Either white or red with the veal-claret or California Zinfandel for the red; Pouilly-Fume for the white.

A Buffet Dinner

Menu

Low-Country Oysters with Mushrooms

Hot Baked Ham

Ring of Red Rice Filled with Green Peas

Escarole Salad with Roquefort Dressing

Hot Rolls

Pears in Orange Juice with Orange Liqueur

The Wine: Chablis has been called the "oyster wine", and it is good with the rest of this menu too.

A Seated Dinner

Menu

Curried Crab Soup

Savoury Roast Veal

Green Peas, French Style

Gratin of Potatoes

Meringues Glacees

The Wine: A vin rose, or a white Burgundy

(Images from Flair: Exquisite Invitations, Lush Flowers, and Gorgeous Table Settings by Joe Nye, Edmund Barr photographer)

The ABCs of Entertaining

And just who is that elegant woman, above? She is Genevieve Antoine Dariaux, former directrice of Nina Ricci. Let me first say that Dariaux is the type of woman that many of us would like to emulate when we become women of a certain age. Her hair was impeccable, the maquillage tasteful, the jewelry quite chic, and that dress...sublime. Of course I'm sure it helped to have that Nina Ricci connection.

So who better to write about elegance than Dariaux? In fact, her first book- titled what else, Elegance- was a primer on how to dress appropriately for every occasion. But it's her 1965 follow-up book,Entertaining With Elegance, that I'm taken with. In it, Dariaux advises the reader on how to entertain with grace and refinement, something which the author seemed to do with aplomb. Her tips are organized alphabetically, so if you need help with ashtrays, punch, place cards, and kissing (not the romantic type, mind you, but rather the purely social variety), you'll know exactly where to look.

So far, I've made it through the D's, so I thought I'd post some of Dariaux's nuggets of wisdom. Unfortunately there are no photos in the book, so I'm improvising with some that I've found in other books. And keep in mind that the book was written 45 years ago- you'll especially need to remember this when you read about preparing dinner for your husband!

(For a more modern approach to entertaining, be sure to check out Joe Nye's forthcoming book Flair: Exquisite Invitations, Lush Flowers, and Gorgeous Table Settings which I'll review soon.)



MAC II included chic sterling cigarette holders and ashtrays on this table.

Ashtrays:

In the living room they should be big but shallow, stable, plentiful, and emptied when they are full.

Standing ashtrays are not at all chic.

On the dining table, they should be small, pretty (preferably of crystal or silver) and there should be one for every place setting.



Let's see, Andy Warhol designed this birthday table for a child who was 1,2,3...6 years old.

Birthdays:

While you would not consider placing on a child's birthday cake anything but the number of candles representing his exact age, the question is more delicate with guests of honor who may not be very anxious to reveal how old they are. This is the system I have adopted:

For children: one candle for every year
For myself: the exact number of years.
For my husband: the same as for myself.
For adults in general: twenty-one candles, if you wish to be very tactful.
For a pretty woman: the most flattering number I can think of.
For somebody over eighty: it all depends. Beyond a certain age, coquetry consists of proudly claiming the maximum years of age- so that it is all the more marvelous, I suppose, to appear so young!

Elsa Peretti managed to make director's chairs look chic

Chairs:

Very few folding chairs are equally suitable for indoor and outdoor use, and if you do a great deal of patio entertaining, it would be advisable also to invest in a set of folding canvas desk chairs, Hollywood-director style, which take up very little storage room. A clever friend of mine has adapted this folding X-model for indoor use in her English-style interior by staining the wooden frames a dark mahogany shade and covering the seat and back with black leatherette, affixed by rows of gilt-headed upholsterer's nails.


If you really want to be naughty, you could tell your guests that the evening's dress code is casual...and you can wear this vintage hostess gown. You'd look great, but your guests would really be steamed.

Clothes:

A hostess should never try to be more elegantly and expensively attired than her guests.

Whenever you entertain, you should inform your guests very precisely as to the kind of dress you yourself intend to wear. I know of nothing more irritating than the hostess who says, "Wear whatever you feel like--" which always makes me want to reply, "All right, I'll come in my nightgown!"




The moral of the story is...do as Mrs. Arthur Hornblow, Jr. and set up an elegant TV Dinner for Two and your husband will think you're the best wife ever.

Dinners for Two:

Why shouldn't a woman feel as if she were giving a dinner party for her husband every evening? ...It seems to me very worthwhile going to a bit of trouble in order to give your husband the impression that every time he comes home in the evening, he is going to a party.

When your little stage setting is ready, you should give a thought to your own appearance and arrange to greet your dinner guest (even though he is in this case your own husband) smiling and fresh, with your hair neatly arranged, wearing a pretty fresh house dress.




A drinks table done right.

Drinks:

At cocktail time: Whisky (Scotch and bourbon), vodka, fruit juice and one of the fortified aperitif wines such as Dubonnet and dry sherry, or a sparkling wine such as champagne.

In the evening: Whisky, fruit juice or soft drinks, and a drink such as gin and tonic in which the spirits are very much diluted in a non-alcoholic mixer, or a sparkling wine.

(Images 2 and 4 from The New Tiffany Table Settings; Images 3 and 6 from Tiffany Table Settings)

An Oscar Worthy Event

I write often about entertaining at home as I'm afraid more and more people are either forgetting to do it or are becoming indifferent to it. I've blogged about hosting small dinner parties on a school night, having people over for drinks, and entertaining guests at large cocktail parties. But what I haven't written so much about is hosting a charity event at one's home. It happens more often than you think. Say you're involved with an organization that appeals to you to host a dinner for said charity. What to do?

Danielle Rollins of Atlanta held just such an event at her home last fall. Danielle and her husband are actively involved in Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, so along with Neiman Marcus they decided to host a dinner in which CHOA was the beneficiary. And to make it even more special, Oscar de la Renta was a guest. Now let's stop here- imagine having Oscar to your home. Can you imagine? Would you panic? Freak out? If you answered "yes" and "yes", then you're not alone. Fortunately, Danielle is an accomplished hostess so she knew just what to do.

Knowing that Oscar was often the guest at glamorous events, Danielle wanted to keep it low-key and very "Georgia". Gardening is important to both Danielle and Oscar, so Danielle set up a long table for 60 people in the lower garden behind her lovely home. Ivory linen hemstitch tablecloths were sewn together to create one long cloth, and under this were custom made burlap cloths. Atlanta floral designer Michal Evans was responsible for the all white dahlia arrangements- so simple and yet so chic, while celebrated chef Anne Quatrano created a farm to table menu using only local ingredients for the event.

So on to the table. Neiman Marcus loaned Danielle the fall toned Herend plates, while she mixed her own sterling flatware with that of friends, a look that she prefers. The hostess' own iron candelabras stood prominently amongst borrowed William Yeoward crystal hurricanes and flower goblets. But truly, one of my favorite things about the table are Danielle's boxwood embroidered napkins with an "R". How gorgeous are they!

No post about entertaining and hostessing would be complete without mentioning that one must go with the flow at his or her parties. Danielle was all dressed for the event in a gray sequin Oscar shift when one of her guests arrived in the very same dress. Without skipping a beat, the hostess turned around, scooted up the stairs, and changed into a green Oscar dress...and she still had a marvelous time at her own party.

Image at top: The garden as it appeared before the guests arrived. Danielle's home is a Philip Shutze; if you think the exterior is pretty, then you need to see the interiors. You will want to move in ASAP!


Danielle with her guest Oscar de la Renta. This shot was obviously taken after the dress change.


The lovely table set with Herend china. Note the pretty place cards.


Danielle's iron candelabras set amongst the white dahlias and wheat grass.


Danielle's boxwood linens that I highly covet. How pretty would they look with a "B" on them?


Mixed flatware. I believe I spy Tiffany Hampton (my pattern as well), Chrysanthemum, and Shell and Thread.



As night fell. What an enchanted scene.

Lee Bailey's City Food

So now on to the late Lee Bailey. I'm not old enough to remember Bailey during his heyday in the 1970s and 80s. (It's been a while since I could honestly say I wasn't old enough for something!) It seems to me, though, that Bailey was unique in that the food, the practical side of cooking and hosting, and the look of the table all got equal billing- no easy feat, but one that Bailey seems to have pulled off with aplomb. It's like there was Bailey the cook, Bailey the instructor and hand-holder to nervous hosts and hostesses, and Bailey the aesthete. In fact, china, flatware, and crystal were so important to Bailey that he used to have a legendary shop that specialized in cooking and table accessories.

I have two favorite Lee Bailey cookbooks- Lee Bailey's City Food: Recipes for Good Food and Easy Living and Lee Bailey's Good Parties. The images here are from City Food. Perhaps a few of these images might seem a bit dated, but if you pull back and look at the atmosphere and mood, I think you might be inspired to host a dinner or throw a good party. At the very least, you might get a few ideas about setting your own stylish table or sideboard.

(If you have any suggestions for similar cookbooks from the 1980s, by all means do tell.)





A cozy setting, and I love that burlwood table.






OK, I'm going to throw this out there...I love a black kitchen, without the purple neon of course. Black kitchens are sexy.






(All images from Lee Bailey's City Food: Recipes for Good Food and Easy Living, Joshua Greene photographer.)

The 1980s and its Glorious Food

There are those people who cook from cookbooks and those who just read them. I fall somewhere in between. Lately, I've been obsessing over cookbooks from the 1980s and truth be told, I haven't read them nor cooked from them- yet. What I've taken delight in are the photos.

I think that those wonderful Tiffany books got me started on this kick a few years ago- Tiffany Taste, The New Tiffany Table Settings (a book that must be prized by others as one listing on Amazon has it selling for $99,999*), and The Tiffany Gourmet Cookbook. Then I moved on to Glorious Food upon the recommendation of Chris Spitzmiller who, by the way, is captivated by the cover photo (see above). More recently I've devoured Lee Bailey's City Food and Lee Bailey's Good Parties.

So why the fascination with these cookbooks? I think it's because their authors placed as much emphasis on the tables, the background, and the atmosphere as they did the food. The photos are so darn styled...and they look marvelous. When I look at these photos, they make me want to host a dinner or drinks party with the same look and feel. I do think that it's a relief that today we don't have to serve four courses to our guests, nor do our dishes have to be complicated. (I mean, aren't we all eternally grateful to Ina Garten that she made hosting a dinner party so easy?) I also believe, though, that we need to see more photos that go beyond a basic table setting or a closeup shot of the food- photos that get the creative juices flowing and that inspire us to want to entertain at home again.

Today I'll show some photos from Glorious Food, and tomorrow is reserved for Lee Bailey. And if you don't cook, not to worry. The decorating in these photos is really pretty good.


*I do realize that the $99,999 listing is a typo...or perhaps a joke. At least, I hope it is.















(All images from Glorious Food by Christopher Idone)