How to Host a Dinner Party (13 page)

And then there are recovering addicts, devout Muslims, pregnant women, and other sorts of non-drinkers. Ideally, this should have come up when you asked about food restrictions. Most people don’t volunteer this information. They don’t like having to explain themselves and they don’t like the possibility of being put on the disabled list for being non-drinkers. They have every right to feel this way.

I’ve had guests avoid telling me that they don’t drink, just as I’ve had guests do the same with vegetarianism or gluten allergies. They’re trying not to stand out, but in thinking that they’ll “just eat around it,” they are making things more awkward. If you know in advance, you can cater to their needs.

If you know that a guest is a non-drinker, find out what he or she likes to drink — a favourite juice or soda. Keep some basics on hand. Recovering alcoholics tend to maintain their loyalty to club soda and ginger ale. And always stock a bit of carbonated water, even if you don’t like the stuff.

But whatever they’re drinking, get them something. Not only can people use a little lubrication, they need something in their hand. They are often in a strange environment and sometimes a prop as simple as a glass of wine or whisky, or even water, can be enough to settle them.

If you are standing, your guests will stand. Most guests won’t sit until they’re told to or given a visual cue. Sitting down and suggesting, “Make yourselves comfortable” is more persuasive than bluntly saying, “Have a seat.” Some hosts, depending on the space or the amount of people, want that standing/mingling atmosphere. It’s up to you, but it’s important that you decide where you want guests to be. Don’t expect eight people to sit down in your living room if there are only enough seats for six.

THE INTRODUCTIONS

I 
 f you are hosting a dinner for besties, where everyone knows and likes each other, skip this step, otherwise you may need to make some introductions.

A grown-up knows how to enter a room of strangers, handshake extended. You see this at weddings. There’s always that guy who walks right up, shakes your hand, and tells you not only his name but his association to the bride or groom. “Hey, I’m Jackie. I’m Estelle’s cousin from Milwaukee. I introduced her to Morty. We were undergrads together. Used to call him T-Bone. He’s got a scar on his left thigh and can’t swing a nine iron.” These people are usually in sales.

If you see people introducing themselves and looking comfortable, stand back. Let the adults talk. But some people are shy. Some people are young. Some people have terrible memories for names.

At this moment, friends who know each other well will greet one another with hugs and exclamations. Those who don’t know everyone may find themselves outsiders, pushed aside, waiting to be introduced. Be on the ball here. Watch for it, and pounce.

If you see that new person standing alone for more than five seconds, slide in between the Best Friends Gang. “Carol,” you interrupt in a commanding voice, “do you know Dr. Van Nostrand? He cured my Seborrheic dermatitis.”

You’re not looking to hand anyone the microphone. No one wants to enter a room of strangers and be expected to take a position on foreign policy.

What you want is to get people talking — about anything — and hopefully to eliminate that wretched non sequitur, “So how do you two know each other?” That’s one of those perfectly reasonable questions that is nevertheless symbolic of dead air. There is nothing wrong with talking about the weather. Maybe it was particularly hot or cold or wet or dry. Sometimes when we discuss the weather, what we are really doing is agreeing to converse, agreeing that we share some common experience, and out of that comes something more meaningful.

This is your chance to introduce new characters, possibly with the nature of your association. It’s not about formality, like the servants of British aristocracy announcing guests as they enter, “Sir William of Brooklyn!” It’s about creating a dialogue, providing discussion merging ramps, telling your own story, if necessary, to jog the conversation of others, before you leave them alone. One should not babble like a drive-time radio host, but gently coax interaction from people, perhaps by relating a story with plenty of holes in it, openings for guests to ask questions or take things in a different direction.

A teacher once told me that if you can get a student to talk within the first five minutes of class, he or she is more likely to participate during the rest of the class. It’s the same for dinner guests. When you’re a host, you never need an excuse to walk away, but get a conversation started first.

And, most important, have faith. Not only can things start off awkwardly, they usually do. I’ve experienced this many times. People come in, they meet, and behind their eyes is a performance of a one-act play titled
This Is Going to Be Awful
. When things aren’t immediately smooth, some people panic. The bad host will be impatient, demanding anecdotes from their guests. “Mike, tell that story you were telling me earlier. It’s hilarious.” If Mike is hilarious, he’s going to be hilarious. All you will communicate with behaviour like this is that you are not confident, and your guests will not be confident in you.

My advice for you, as hosts, is to have faith. In my experience, things smooth out 100 percent of the time. People find shared ground and discover that they have more in common than they thought, which usually happens within ten minutes. Take a deep breath and carry on.

PUNCH

A cocktail is a sophisticated way to start any evening. But mixing a good drink requires attention — measuring ingredients, stirring, tasting, icing— and at an evening’s critical beginning, your attention is needed elsewhere.

If you really want to serve a cocktail, this is what punch is for. Punch has many meanings. For our purposes, it is a cocktail that can be mixed and chilled in advance, presented in a large vessel, allowing guests to serve themselves.

My friend Jen Agg is a restaurateuroperating several establishments under the Black Hoof banner. Not a month goes by without some magazine writing a profile about her cocktailmaking skills, but she doesn’t do things the easy way. Here is her “basic” recipe for punch.

Punch Recipe

In a 32 oz. (1 L) Mason jar, combine the lemon and orange zest with the gin, rum, and spiced rum. Let it sit for one to three days. Strain.

It’s better if you can do this earlier in the day to let the flavours mingle.

Have all ingredients chilled to start.

Rub the inside of the jar with one mint sprig. Pour the liquors back in. Add the Crème de Cassis, ginger ale, club soda, lemon, lime, orange, and pink grapefruit juices. Stir.

To finish, add the bitters and sparkling wine. Stir and top with fresh mint.

Serve in the jar. Or, if you’re multiplying the recipe, fill a large bowl with ice. Place the punch in a smaller bowl and mount on the ice. Put out a ladle and cups and let your guests figure it out.

Once you’ve gotten the hang of this, you can experiment with the ingredients, so long as you stick to the ratios. “What you could do with this recipe,” explains Jen, “is take out the mint or the spiced rum or have all gin and no rum or you could switch out the citrus. You could just do lemon and orange. You can take anything out so long as you replace it with something that adds the same character.”

Serves four.

S
oon, as the host, we must disengage from the group. The guests are all in place. They’re drinking. They’re talking. And while you’ve just gone through the toughest fifteen minutes of the whole evening, at some point you need to go to the kitchen and put dinner on the table.

I try to steal away with the quiet grace of Santa Claus or a ninja or (spoiler alert) your parents when they pretended to be Santa, furtively slipping candy and toys into your Christmas stocking. The way not to do it is like my father, bluntly demanding that we change the channel because the Cosbys were celebrating Christmas.