Nathalie Dupree - Nathalie Duprees Comfortable Entertaining: At Home with Ease and Grace

Nathalie Duprees COMFORTABLE Entertaining

AT HOME WITH EASE & GRACE

Published in 2013 by the University of Georgia Press

Athens, Georgia 30602

www.ugapress.org

1998 by Nathalie Dupree

Photographs 1998 by Tom Eckerle

All rights reserved

Designed by Jaye Zimet

Set in Bembo

Printed and bound by Imago

The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.

Printed in China

13 14 15 16 17 P 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Dupree, Nathalie.

[Comfortable entertaining]

Nathalie Duprees comfortable entertaining : at home with ease and grace.

pages cm

Originally published: New York : Viking, 1998.

Includes index.

ISBN 978-0-8203-4513-0 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. Entertaining. 2. Cooking. I. Title. II. Title: Comfortable entertaining.

TX731.D824 2013

642.2dc23

2012034506

ISBN for digital edition: 978-0-8203-4578-9

Nathalie Duprees Comfortable Entertaining: At Home with Ease and Grace was originally published in 1998 by Viking Penguin, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc.

This book is for all those who want to issue hospitality with ease and graceespecially the young women my friends and I wish we could have taught moreAudrey, LuLen, Gail, little Marion Sullivan, Mary Rawson, and Margaret Foreman.

Once again I am indebted to many peoplemy husband Jack, who found my agent, Angela Miller, for me, and supported me every step of the way, and my good friends and helpers, Kay Calvert and Richard Lands, without whom the manuscript would not have been possible. Kay has loyally worked for me for over twenty years, and Ric has helped me since the taping of New Southern Cookings second series, over ten years ago. They are an invaluable part of my team.

Recipes and tips were also generously provided by Marion Sullivan, Peggy Foreman, and Carole Landon. All the testers were priceless, as were the friends who read the manuscript and made comments, who gave recipes, who lent their houses for the photo shoot, and those who volunteered to help. These include Spring Asher, the Australian Meat and Live-Stock Corporation of New York, Traci Badenhausen, Victoria Cohen, Merrill Davis, Penny Goldwasser, Elise Griffin, Bud Koram, Elizabeth Land, Sara Levy, M. Cory Lewis, Sandy Linver, Elliott Mackle, Barbara Morgan, Karen Oakley, Drexel Pringle, Lydia Rajczak, Anne Rand, Pat Royalty, Patricia Scott, Todd Weinstein, Virginia Willis, and Wendy Wolfenberger. Reading China and More provided valuable assistance with propping.

Amy Mintzer gave incredible editorial support, as did my editor, Carole DeSanti. Her assistant, Alexandra Babanskyj, is ever helpful and cheerful, thank goodness. Tom Eckerle, the photographer, is enormously pleasant and easy to work with. The beauty of this book is due to Jaye Zimet, design director. I am truly grateful for her skill and grasp of my message. She translated my vision into photos as beautifully as I could have hoped for. Two other people aided immeasurably with the photographs: Penny Goldwasser, my interior designer, who is my mentor in the visual and arranged to use homes of other clients for the photography, and Virginia Willis, who has gone from being my apprentice years ago to a top food stylist for print as well as television. My producer Teresa Statz is a great aide in translating print into motion. Thanks to the loyal GPTV crew as well. Special thanks to Howell Raines for the use of his home for the cover.

Nathalie Duprees COMFORTABLE Entertaining

I hosted my first formal party at the age of ten. My eleven-year-old sister and I married off our four-year-old brother to a little girl in the neighborhood. We planned the entire weddingfrom finding the bridal gown and the grooms suit to rounding up cookies, which we baked, and cheese straws, which a neighbor graciously donated. From that day on, I knew I loved giving parties.

By the time I was in my teens, my parents were divorced, my mother was working as a low-paid government clerk, and funds for entertaining were nonexistent. I did it anyway. I served iced tea or Cokes with chips and onion dip, and we had a great time. Those parties at Mothers included so many teens crammed into our small apartment that she hardly could move. (Her philosophic response: At least I know where you are.)

Entertaining is a mindset, an attitude as well as a practicenot quite an art form but more than a craft. Like most artistic endeavors, it is a marriage of personal expression and technique learned through observation and experience. An excellent host may well be self-taught, with the desire to entertain in a way that is graceful and comfortable. A good guide can help you avoid catastrophesor at the very minimum, put them into perspective. This book talks about my mistakes as well as my successes, what I have learned not to do as well as what I hope you will learn to do.

What do I mean by comfortable entertaining? The Oxford English Dictionary defines comfortable as affording mental or spiritual delight or enjoyment. (Also free from pain and troublelets keep that in mind as well.) To entertain, it says, is not only to provide sustenance for a person, but also to take upon oneself an obligation. The key ingredient in entertaining is the desire to be hospitable.

During my freshman year in college, I lived with my father and stepmother. It was a dramatic change. As ranking colonel on an army post, my father lived in what seemed to me an enormous house. There were protocols for every aspect of daily life, especially entertaining, which was itself inextricably linked to the obligations and rituals of military life. The lessons I learned during those years also contributed to my knowledgepositive lessons about how to give structure and organization to a gathering as well as negative lessons in what to avoid. The food was much better than the sodas and chips I provided at my mothers, and the napkins were folded absolutely correctly, but the rigid ambience didnt foster lighthearted fun.

Good and bad, much of what I know about the heart of entertaining I learned from my parents. Make your guests comfortable in your home. Welcome them, truly welcome them: Being delighted they are there is the spirit of entertaining. Being well enough prepared so that you can enjoy yourself with them is the practical key. Everything elsemenus, decorations, table settingscomes after. Comfortable entertaining embraces the key ingredients: the host and the guest.

You can only learn to host successfully by doing it.

Although practice doesnt lead necessarily to perfection, it is the key to better entertaining. In fact, perfection isnt the goal, and neither is professional-level catering or competition with a top restaurant. The goal is your comfort and the comfort of your guests, and nothing will be comfortable to you if it isnt familiar.

So how to begin? Not with a black-tie, sit-down dinner for twenty. Start small with what you know Little by little, add to that experience, and soon youll be as much of a pro as you need to be. Only through entertaining will you find your own style of entertaining. Through cooking for friends you will develop a core of recipes that youre comfortable making and serving, that you can embellish or simplify as the occasion demands. As with other meaningful endeavors, your entertaining style likely will reflect your personality.