The Editors of Conari Press - Weekends Away (Without Leaving Home): The Ultimate World Party Theme Book

Copyright 2002 by Conari Press.

All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles or reviews. For information, contact: Conari Press, 2550 Ninth Street, Suite 101, Berkeley, CA 94710-2551.

Conari Press books are distributed by Publishers Group West.

Cover Illustration and Design: Anne Smith

Book Design: Claudia Smelser

Layout and Composition: Jaime Robles

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Weekends away without leaving home : the ultimate world party theme book

p. cm.

ISBN 1573247618

1. Cookery, International. 2. Entertaining. I. Conari Press.

TX725.A1 W365 2002

641.59dc21 2001004358

Printed in the United States of America on recycled paper.

01 02 03 TC 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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This book was born at a brainstorming editorial retreat that Conari Press held with our whole staff. One idea led to another, but Production Manager Jenny Collins really birthed the concept by telling us about a weekend that one of her roommates, Suzanne Gooding, organized for a friend.

This has been truly a collective effort, with many folks from Conari pitching in to write chapters, including Jenny Collins, Mignon Freeman, Mary Jane Ryan, Will Glennon, Leslie Berriman, Brenda Knight, Sharon Donovan, Teresa Coronado, Julie Kessler, Rosie Levy, and Heather McArthur. Heather was the point person who pulled all the pieces together, while Mary Jane did the content editing and Pam Suwinsky the copyediting. In addition, we had invaluable help from Josh Merlin and Debbie Adler, Donald McIlraith, Genna Barfoot, Leah Russell, and Ofer Caspi. Thanks to everyone who played a part.

by Nina Lesowitz and Lara Morris Starr,
authors of The Party Girl Cookbook

We've all been there. You've got a bad case of wanderlust, but the distance between your passport and your passbook won't allow for much more than a trip to the video store. The good news is, if you can stretch your budget to cover brief layovers at the market, library, and thrift shop, you've pretty much got yourself a first-class ticket to Partyville!

The very best parties have a solid theme that is carried out from invitation through party favors, and what better theme than a virtual trip to anywhereor everywherein the world, played out over an entire weekend? You can entertain your entire entourage of friends, that one special companion, or take a solo flight of fantasy to the locale of your dreams.

The first stop on your itinerary is the proper state of mind. Approach your weekend as though you are truly preparing to travel. When your friends and co-workers ask you about your weekend plans, by all means mention that you are going to Morocco or Japan. Either smile vaguely when they give you a quizzical look, or take the opportunity to explain what you're doing. Stop the newspaper and mail for a few days, and make a pledge to let the machine answer the phone.

You can use the tips in Weekends Away Without Leaving Home in a variety of ways: recreate a favorite vacation (wouldn't you just love a chance to haul out those old souvenirs and photo albums?), teach your kids about a new culture, research and share your heritage, or explore a region that's always interested you.

Select the movies, books, foods, and a couple of decorative flourishes that will recreate the sights, sounds, taste, and texture of anyplace you'd like to visit, for a fraction of the cost (and almost none of the hassle). With the editors of Conari Press as your tour guides, your living room can easily be transformed into a Mexican plaza, your dining room a Parisian caf, your backyard the Australian outback. When you immerse yourself in the culture of a foreign country, you'll feel the cares of the worka-day world slip away as though you truly are on vacation, and you'll emerge from your weekend enriched by a cultural experience and yet refreshed enough to bounce back into real life.

All of this without long check-in lines, inoculations against exotic diseases, and hotels with questionable hygiene. Now that's what we call a bon voyage!

A WEEKEND away! Who doesn't need such an experience every once in a while? A chance to leave your cares and busyness behind, to see new sights and taste new food, to bask in the ambiance of someplace different, to recharge your batteries and return renewed and refreshed.

But what if you're tired of all the places you can easily get to for a weekend, and your budget can't stretch to include a trip to an exotic locale? Or you are housebound for any number of reasonssmall children, illness, out of vacation days at work... ?

Weekends Away Without Leaving Home to the rescue. Among these pages, you will find the makings for fifteen wonderful, rejuvenating weekends awaywithout ever leaving home or spending a wad of money! With help from this book, you can journey to cities and countries you've always dreamed of visiting, or reexperience the joy you felt when you were able to travel.

Weekends Away Without Leaving Home is based on a simple assumption: That with a tiny bit of ingenuity and effort on your part, you can create a wonderful weekend that brings almost as much pleasure as an actual vacation awaywithout the hassle of long flights, foreign currency exchange, or large credit card bills.

The editors at Conari Press have selected some of the premier travel destinations in the world for your enjoyment and offer ideas for creating an authentic experience in the comfort of your own backyard. Each chapter was written by someone who either has spent some time in the country or city featured, or has a close affinity to that locale, and reflects the unique sensibility of the author. You can choose a quiet weekend with classical music in St. Petersburg, for instance, or a wild Carnaval theme in Brazil. From organizing a weekend around a Chinese holiday to touring the Tuscan countryside, there is truly something for everyone here.

If you are attracted to a particular locale and the theme doesn't appeal, feel free to pick and choose the elements of the experience that do call to you. Reading the chapter on Ireland, for instance, inspired me to host a weekend party in which people read out loud to one another from the great Irish poets. But I steered clear of the Irish cuisine and opted for Italian instead.

You can design your weekend for a cozy tte-a-tte for two or plan on having a whole gang of friendseither for the entire time, la pajama party, or perhaps for an afternoon or evening. And while we have structured each chapter around a weekend, you can easily use this book to create a theme for a dinner party or for an entire week by yourself.

No matter the place, the format of each chapter is the same. We first offer suggestions for setting the sceneboth in terms of atmosphere and dcor, and, in some cases, activities that you might want to indulge in to really get in the mood. Then we move to books that you might want to read, either before the weekend to get ideas for your adventure, or as part of the weekend itself. Suggestions for videos and music follow, and we end by suggesting a meal to prepare as well as cookbooks you might want to look at for other meals.

Just as going away requires some planning and forethought, so do our weekends at home. The items we suggest in each category are readily available at thrift stores, libraries, used bookstores, and music and video rental shops. The idea is to make this as easy and low cost for you as possible. Feel free to let your imagination go wild, and substitute anything that appeals you.