Great GetTogethers

My friend, Kathy, has hosted an annual Derby Party since 1994. You may remember two years ago she wrote a guest blog for Great GetTogethers in which she shared her party ideas and explained how to make a Mint Julep. It’s the essential drink for Derby Day, and I invite you to try it this year. Here’s her favorite recipe:

Mint Juleps

Make a simple syrup by boiling 2 cups sugar and 2 cups water for 5 minutes without stirring.  Fill a large jar loosely with sprigs of fresh mint (uncrushed) and cover with the cooled syrup.  Cap and refrigerate 12 to 24 hours.  Discard mint.

Make one julep at a time.  Fill julep cup with finely crushed ice.  Add about 2 ounces of fine Kentucky Bourbon.  (My favorite is Makers’ Mark.)  Add about 2 ounces of the mint syrup.  Garnish with a short straw and a sprig of mint.  Serve at once.

I keep the mint syrup in a pitcher in the refrigerator.  Guests can refresh their own juleps adding as much or as little bourbon as they like.  A bouquet of mint on the bar adds fragrance and allows guests to perk up their juleps.

Kathy serves her Mint Juleps in chilled silver-plated cups, which adds an elegant touch.

Marna Krajeski is the author of Small GetTogethers: The Tiny but Terrific Party Planning Notebook and Great Get Togethers: A Planner, Organizer, and Keepsake for Memorable Events.

Read her blogs at GreatGetTogethers.com and HouseholdBaggage.com.

Earth Day makes me think about how we can incorporate environmental considerations into our party planning. With a few simple modifications, you can make your Great GetTogether more earth-friendly.

Invitations—You can send invitations via email rather than the US mail. An electronic e-invitation service like Evite.com may lack the tone-setting ability of a beautiful hard-copy invitation, but it’s paperless. The site offers other useful features such as a variety of colorful templates, an easy RSVP function, and a place for invitees to ask and answer questions.

Food—Serve locally produced food and items that are in-season. You can’t go wrong with fresh food simply prepared.

Drinks—Though they are convenient, say goodbye to red solo cups, paper cups, and Styrofoam cups. Go with glasses which can be washed, beer in bottles or cans which can be recycled, and pitchers full of drinks such as iced tea and punch.

Dishes—Same with dishware. Avoid the paper or plastic plates and bowls that just go into garbage bags and then into the landfill. Break out your glass plates. I’ve accumulated a stock of inexpensive dinnerware for this occasion.

Flatware—Set out the stainless flatware rather than the plastic stuff. It’s washable and reduces landfill bulk.

Napkins—Stock up on cloth napkins for your guests rather than paper ones.

Compost what you can—Any vegetables peelings from preparation or leftover crudités from the party can be composted.

Recycle what you can—Keep a bin labeled “Recycle” handy so your guests know where to put cans and bottles.

Party Favors—Edible items make great party favors, rather than the usual knick-knacks in plastic bags. I once made loaves of Irish Soda bread for party favors. You can think of other reusable, sustainable gifts related to your theme or event. Even better, give it to your guests in a reusable shopping bag. Everybody can use more of those.

Decorations—Forget the dollar store specials. Natural cuttings, greenery, ivy, and fresh flowers make great decorations. For example, in the fall, use bittersweet or autumn leaves; springtime calls for daffodils, tulips or lilies.

Admit it, you don’t really know what you’re eating when you’re shoveling fork fulls of Corned Beef and Cabbage in your mouth on St. Patrick’s Day. It’s just what one does on March 17th.

I got curious so I did some research. Corned Beef is brisket or round steak that’s been cured or pickled in seasoned brine (salt water).  There’s no corn in it. The “corn” in the name comes from corns of salt, or coarse granular salts used to cure the beef.

What’s more, it’s not an authentic Irish dish. We Americans associate it with St. Patrick’s Day because the British-owned beef was raised and then cured in Ireland. Most of the corned beef was  exported. The dish was too expensive for native Irish to consume.

I heard an Irish television host (named Patrick) remark that corned beef was “a dreadful dish to think about eating.” He said he’d much rather have a good Irish stew or a leg of lamb, thank you very much.

Here’s a recipe for Irish Stew if you’d like to try making it this year.

Another Irish dish is Colcannon, which is more authentic than corned beef when you consider the poor Irish were driven off the best land so the British could raise their beef. The locals were banished to hard-scrabble plots of land to grow potatoes and cabbage. Colcannon is made with mashed potatoes and kale or cabbage. Other ingredients such as milk, cream, leeks, onions, and chives may be added.

Serve this with some Irish Soda Bread and a stout, and you’ve got yourself a Great GetTogether. Erin Go Bragh! (“Ireland Forever”)

Marna Krajeski is the author of Small GetTogethers: The Tiny but Terrific Party Planning Notebook and Great Get Togethers: A Planner, Organizer, and Keepsake for Memorable Events.

Read her blogs at GreatGetTogethers.com and HouseholdBaggage.com.

February 22 is National Margarita Day, and it reminds me of a way to make a party or dinner more memorable. If you take a few minutes to think up a signature cocktail for the event, it really adds a nice touch.

For example, several years ago some friends invited me to an outdoor barbecue which took place on the first clear day after nine straight days of rain. Needless to say, we were all stir crazy. I brought along a bottle of raspberry vodka and the hostess and I mixed a pitcher of drinks using the recipe from the back label. I can’t remember what it was called, but we named our drink “The Rainbuster.” Poured into plastic cups and garnished with lime slices, it was refreshing and roundly enjoyed.

Here I am enjoying the specialty cocktail at a tony wedding in Newport, Rhode Island. Appropriately, the martini was called “Something Blue.”

Another time, we had a family over to celebrate Chinese New Year’s with the traditional roast chicken meal.  We also whipped up a drink (again, using a recipe from the back of the rum bottle) which we called “The Imperial Cocktail.”

Try this:  Find a drink recipe in a bartender’s guide and think of a way to adapt it to your theme and occasion. You can just re-name it or modify it slightly with an ingredient or garnish. It’s an easy way to kick up an event.

Marna Krajeski is the author of Small GetTogethers: The Tiny but Terrific Party Planning Notebook and Great Get Togethers: A Planner, Organizer, and Keepsake for Memorable Events.

Read her blogs at GreatGetTogethers.comand HouseholdBaggage.com.

In my sister blog, HouseholdBaggage.com, I wrote about visiting the laundromat because my dryer broke. The trip was painless, however, because three loads of laundry dried in 40 minutes, and I got to flip through some good magazines while I waited.

One of the magazines was Country Living, and I was pleasantly surprised by the content.   There wasn’t a single goose or dairy cow featured. They had many beautiful and creative ideas for cooking, decorating, and entertaining.

Like this Alice in Wonderland Valentine’s Tea Party. When my daughter was 8, we had a sweet Valentine’s Tea for her and two friends. It wasn’t nearly as clever as this one, with its invitations made to look like tea bags

Invitations look like tea bags. (Photo by CountryLiving.com)

Heart-shaped sandwiches

Heart-shaped sandwiches (Photo by CountryLiving.com)

And garlands made of playing cards.

(Photo by CountryLiving.com)

This magazine had great ideas to swipe and file away for next time.  I’ll definitely pick it up again.  See the full slide show at CountryLiving.com.

Marna Krajeski is the author of Small GetTogethers: The Tiny but Terrific Party Planning Notebook and Great Get Togethers: A Planner, Organizer, and Keepsake for Memorable Events.

Read her blogs at GreatGetTogethers.comand HouseholdBaggage.com.

by Marsha Clinton, Guest Blogger for Great GetTogethers

Just in time for Super Bowl parties, Marsha Clinton reveals her Top Twelve Tips for hosting large get-togethers.  Cooking for a crowd is nothing new to Marsha, who routinely entertains family and friends at her home (65 guests for Christmas dinner!).

Here’s what I consider my top twelve tips for serving a crowd. A typical Clinton gathering (birthday party, bridal shower) is 20 people and then Christmas morphs into something much larger. I’m not a fan of big-box-store prepared foods since I enjoy cooking, and want it to taste good not store bought.

1. Choose a Theme–Plan your menu carefully. I choose a theme or food style, whether it’s Southern, Cajun, TexMex, Italian, etc. It helps keep the menu cohesive, and you often use similar ingredients throughout the dishes.

2. Menu–Make sure a large portion of your menu can be prepared beforehand. You don’t want to miss your own party because you are stuck in the kitchen. Plus large quantities take more time to prepare so you cannot get it all done right before serving. I have two extra refrigerators plus an extra freezer where I can keep food. For Christmas, my porch is a good spot to keep things cool if it’s cold out. You can also ask your neighbors for refrigerator space if they are good friends.

3. Serving Dishes–I have a stash of large white platters and bowls. They can serve anything and they don’t clash with any of the other serving plates you may use.

4. Serving Utensils–I have collected large spoons and spatulas which are key to serving that large bowl of pasta, salad, or beans.

5. Plates–I have a lot of china which I use, but if it’s a summer gathering or a kids’ event, then I use paper plates. Pottery Barn has a great catering set of plates that I have on hand, plus I bought some plates at a restaurant supply store. You can get extra flatware at Target.

6. Chafing Dishes–Make the investment and buy heated serving trays. I have two large steam trays that are invaluable. The wire kind are cheaper but don’t hold as much and don’t last.

7. Buffet Style–Serve buffet style but plan out the format. I use the island in my kitchen for serving the buffet. I lay out the empty serving pieces ahead of time  so that I have the right utensils and spacing. It also helps if I make a list so that I don’t accidentally leave a dish in the fridge and forget to serve it to my guests.

8. Drinks and Appetizers–Set them up outside the kitchen. You can’t serve a large group if everyone is in the kitchen at the same time.

9. Sit-Down Dining For a Crowd–I set up some long folding tables and chairs, in addition to my kitchen and dining room tables. With a large group, they won’t all need to sit at the same time since the kids go through and finish quickly, and there are always adults who talk a while before they get around to eating. If it’s a lap-tray affair, I just make sure my menu doesn’t require cutting.

10. Shopping List–I use a grocery shopping app called Grocery IQ that’s a life saver. This way I combine all the items from the various recipes, and I’m not stuck running to the store at the last minute.

11. Don’t Forget–Stock up on cleaning supplies–paper towels, dish soap, garbage bags, aluminum foil, etc. Remember to empty your dishwasher ahead of time. Set up designated receptacles for trash and recyclables.

12. Have Fun! Enjoy the crowd. Enjoy the energy. Have a glass of wine.

If you need a good cookbook, I recommend Perfect Party Food by Diane Phillips because she always includes a do-ahead tip and the recipes have been great.

Marsha Clinton lives in Northern Virginia, where she enjoys taking care of her husband and four children, raising seeing eye dogs, and, of course, cooking and socializing. Thanks for sharing your expertise, Marsha.

Manage any event large or small with Great GetTogethers and Small GetTogethers, party planning notebooks that guide you effortless through each stage with easy-to-follow checklists and reminders.

That can only mean one thing: The Super Bowl is here. According to Good Morning America today, over one billion wings are consumed on Super Bowl Sunday. That’s “billion” with a “B.”

Good Morning America “Deals and Steals” is offering wing sauce from the original Anchor Bar in Buffalo, NY, where wings began in 1964.

The Beer Cupcakes were also featured on the show this morning. Here’s a recipe for Blue Moon Cupcakes and another for Chocolate Stout Cupcakes.

P.S. I think I’ll drink my beer rather than cook with it, but let me know how these turn out!

Marna Krajeski is the author of Small GetTogethers: The Tiny but Terrific Party Planning Notebook and Great Get Togethers: A Planner, Organizer, and Keepsake for Memorable Events.

Read her blogs at GreatGetTogethers.com and HouseholdBaggage.com.

I thought this was a joke when I first heard it. A burger between two glazed donuts? It had to be a sarcastic take-off on deep fat fry cookery. Then I discovered it was a real Paula Deen dish. Here’s the recipe from her website. Conveniently, there’s no nutritional information listed.

But it’s so much worse than just a donut burger. It’s a burger AND a fried egg AND two slices of bacon between TWO glazed donuts.

She euphemistically calls it  ”Brunch.” You could also say it’s a homemade Egg Mc- Muffin with a side order of clogged arteries.

Once a year I’d go to the State Fair and order one of these fat- clotted delicacies and split it with my daughter. Call it part recreation, part sustenance. My seventeen year old son (the one with two hollow legs) would order one just for himself because when I showed him the picture last night he said, “That looks pretty good.”

Marna Krajeski is the author of Small GetTogethers: The Tiny but Terrific Party Planning Notebook and Great Get Togethers: A Planner, Organizer, and Keepsake for Memorable Events.

Read her blogs at GreatGetTogethers.com and HouseholdBaggage.com.

Recently I received an offer for the 75th Anniversary Edition of Joy of Cooking, that chatty bible/battle axe/encyclopedia which is synonymous with my mother’s kitchen. I tried to recall other vintage cookbooks from childhood, but there’s only one:  Betty Crocker’s New Boys and Girls Cook Book ©1965.

This isn’t our original one—it disintegrated from use or disappeared in a military move—but twelve years ago I discovered another copy at a used book sale and squealed with delight as it  transported me back to first grade.

The maniacally cheerful, white-aproned brother and sister team on the front cover were my kitchen companions. As the triumphant boy-chef held aloft his chocolate layer cake, the sister, tending to cheeseburgers, gazed in genuine admiration. Oh, the dizzying personal potential contained within these pages.

They’re a memory keeper of all the times my sister and I cooked “Silver Dollar Pancakes (p. 36) and the gimmicky Carrot Curls (p. 51). We thought Silhouette Sandwiches (p.40) made with white bread, bologna, and American cheese were the coolest thing. I loved the adorable Bunny Salad (p. 57) made with canned pears with cottage cheese for a tail and almond slices for ears. It was creativity in the kitchen to be sure. Some of the recipes are humorous now, to wit “Ham” Loaf Hawaiian (p. 68), or Spam embellished with pineapple rings. (This would later appear in White Trash Cookbooks as “Rack of Spam.”). The Polka-dotted Macaroni and Cheese (p. 72) was always a crowd-pleaser. For the piece de resistance, there was the Castle Cake (p. 101) or the ever-popular Drum Cake (p. 135).

Silhouette Sandwiches

This cookbook has the best meat loaf recipe. I still use it.

Sure, with its over-reliance on mixes and processed food, the recipes lack nutritional value by today’s standards. Since corned beef hash and Rice-a-roni served as the base of the food pyramid in our large family back then, we didn’t care.

Although we’ve progressed to whole foods obtained at the farmer’s market or grown in our backyard, I owe my love of food and cooking to the tutelage in this cheerful yellow primer.

(Marna Ashburn Krajeski is the author of Small GetTogethers and Great GetTogethers. She blogs at GreatGetTogethers.com and HouseholdBaggage.com.)

Bunny Salad

Castle Cake

Ham Loaf Hawaiian

I recently hosted my first bridal luncheon for my niece, Ashley. Since I’d never done it before, I searched online for guidance. I discovered that luncheons aren’t like showers where you play games and stick bows on the bride’s head. It’s mostly for female friends and family to spend some quality time with the bride before the big day. Still, I tried to add a little bit of structure to the luncheon, so here are my tips, suggestions, and lessons learned.

• Keep the numbers down. We invited 17 women and 13 attended. We all fit at one long table.
• Have some idea of a sequence of events, but keep it loosely structured with time for relaxed conversation.
• I coordinated with a restaurant and we narrowed the menu down to two entrees served with iced tea and dessert. This is the best way to do it, as it streamlines the logistics and simplifies ordering. The restaurant printed out custom menus and put them at each place setting.
• The purist in me prefers paper invitations, but this time I used www.Evite.com because the guests lived all over the country. The RSVP mechanism enabled me to have an up-to-the-minute guest count. I had to send one snail mail invitation because the grandmother didn’t have email
• Remember name tags for your guests. Not those awful adhesive ones but pretty pin-on badges you make ahead of time. Along with names, I put relation to the bride (aunt, bridesmaid, etc) and hometown.  You can also use these as place cards so guests know where to sit.
  (I recommend assigned seating.)
• Begin the luncheon by going around the table and asking everyone to introduce themselves, say something about themselves, and tell how they know the bride.
• After dessert, we did something very special for the bride. A few weeks earlier, I asked the the guests to bring a wedding-themed bead or charm for a Pandora bracelet. I presented the starter bracelet to Ashley, and then each woman gave her a wrapped gift containing one bead. By luncheon’s end, Ashley had an entire Pandora bracelet (something she’d wanted), and it turned out beautifully.

  

  Ashley's Bridal Luncheon Bracelet (photo by http://www.LauraBreecePhotography.com)

• Our gift had the additional benefit of generating lots of ribbon and bows for her rehearsal bouquet.
• Finally, to end the luncheon, I passed around a basket of party favors. They were small, flat beach rocks (in honor of her beach wedding) that my daughter and I had cleaned and painted in the wedding color (teal). On each one, we’d inscribed a word like “Trust,” “Laughter,” “Faith,” “Peace,” and other qualities of an enduring marriage. I asked that we go around the table and everyone say the word on their rock. Collectively it became a touching and heartfelt wedding blessing for Ashley and her groom.

Some guests were unclear if they had to pay for their lunch, but it was always my intention to foot the bill as the hostess. (That’s what aunties do!) I arranged for the server to bring the check to me discretely.

Don’t let financial constraints stop you from giving a luncheon for the bride-to-be. If necessary, I could’ve asked my sisters or mother to help out, or we could have prepared and served the food ourselves at someone’s home.

As with any entertaining endeavor, the important thing is not the opulence, but the intent in your heart.

(Marna Krajeski is the author of Small GetTogethers: The Tiny but Terrific Party Planning Notebook and Great GetTogethers: A Planner, Organizer, and Keepsake for Memorable Events. She blogs at GreatGetTogethers.com and HouseholdBaggage.com.)