Party Notes
Including a tablecloth lesson in video form, some tabletop recommendations, and a very tasty garden tomato salsa
Well, that’s a wrap on my parents’ anniversary celebration, which I believe counts as the largest dinner party I’ve ever thrown. It wasn’t really all that big (we were only 16), but when dinner is going to be a sit-down affair and you’re doing all the cooking and serving yourself, it is nonetheless Christmas-level ambitious. Here are some things I learned from the experience:
Party planning aside (because you’ll do that in your mind possibly for months ahead of time), a dinner of this size will gobble up at least four days of your life: one for shopping; one for cooking and initial set-up; a third to finish setting up, to throw the party itself, and then to wash up and tear everything down; and, crucially, a final day for lying on the sofa with cucumber slices over your eyeballs recovering. Do not neglect to factor in that last day, because you’ll need it.
I was already dreaming up this celebration last winter, and contemplating the importance of the dining scene when it comes to making a meal feel special (i.e., not just another family dinner). For whatever reason, we have never had a family feast in the garden overlooking the river before, so come hell or the recurrence of hurricane Harvey, that’s where it would be. And it was! And that’s what made it. Even for a small dinner, if you’re bored with your entertaining, try moving to another space in the house or outside and see what an adventure it becomes.
My first concern when I came up with this scheme months ago was the table decor. I remembered having swooned over gorgeous linen robes at a friend’s country house a few years ago, so I ordered our tablecloth and napkins for the party from the same company, Mungo. They’re based in South Africa, where everything is woven and made. Wonderful stuff! (Note, if you’re in the USA, you should order from this site instead.)
The reason I bring up the tablecloth is not so much to draw attention to Mungo, but to prevent you from making the same mistake I made when I bought it. This is duh advice, but apparently I could have used it: first know your table, then order your tablecloth. D’you think!? But, oh no no, I just ordered that tablecloth, roughly the size of a football field, without having a clue what I’d be laying it on. Naturally, two days before the event, I discovered that it would cover only two of the three tables I needed to seat everyone.
Necessity is indeed the mother of invention: those quilts I dragged out for last week’s video came to the rescue. I used the Mungo cloth to cover two of the dining tables, then I positioned my third table in a T across the top and threw a quilt over it. It gave the head table distinction, wouldn’t you say? I used another quilt for the buffet table, and, finally, got out more quilts to hang on the line for a decorative walI. The result was an arrangement that looked like it had been my plan all along. Whew!
Let me save you some trouble when it comes to ordering a tablecloth with what I hope will be a helpful video: