7 Responses to “Are You A Natural Entertainer?”

1. I guess I’d be in that kind of laid-back category. More like, get-it-clean, start-dinner kind of laid back. I have to have certain things done beforehand. And I know what I’m cooking. One thing that helped was my former husband and I started entertaining right after we were married and he was still in grad school and we had NO money. But we loved people and we loved to cook for them. That started a lifetime (and I do mean lifetime) of entertaining. If you do something often enough, you get really relaxed about it so even if something screws up, you just laugh, pour more wine and keep on going.

   by Maggie on June 25th, 2007 at 8:47 pm
   
   

2. Kate, I too run around all day cleaning, setting things up and cooking. By the time my guests arrive I am usually exhausted. If I do get a few free minutes and everything is ready or if my guests are running a little late, I sit and relaz before the festivities begin.

   by Annette on June 25th, 2007 at 10:47 pm
   
   

3. Oops, that’s sit and relax.

   by Annette on June 25th, 2007 at 10:48 pm
   
   

4. I entertain alot and I’m a lunatic everytime, just ask my family. I want my house perfect, the food prepped, the music on, the lights just right…it’s kind of like a theatre set. You would think I’d relax because I do it so much. Perhaps I should take up drinking before the guests arrive. But I must say, my favorite type of entertaining is spur of the moment because then it doesn’t matter if your house is a mess and you don’t have everything perfect. Maybe I should do more of that…..

   by Melissa Balsam on June 25th, 2007 at 11:38 pm
   
   

5. Spur of the moment entertaining is THE BEST, Melissa. Like when you’re talking about doing something with friends, then you just say, “Come on over right now. We’ll order pizza or whatever.” No one cares if the house is messy or there’s no dessert.

   Maggie, I envy you, girl. I think I inherited this perfectionism from my mother because it’s been with me forever. This Thursday my husband and I are having 26 lawyers and spouses over. Am I a wreck? Not yet. But on THursday, well, it won’t be pretty.

   I like the idea of a glass of wine right before guests come. Annette, I think I’ll try it!

   Kate

   by Kate Collins on June 26th, 2007 at 10:54 am
   
   

6. When I still lived at home, I entertained from time to time: but however hard I tried to be efficient, it never quite worked that way, so I developed into a fairly laid back style of entertainer. Let’s face it, with two tortoiseshell cats ‘helping’ my every move, I could never be as well ordered as I might have liked to have been… On one occasion, my brother who though liking cats was not so familiar with their ways, came and brought meat with him, as he knew I would not have much meat in the house. He put it on the grill, but one piece dropped off. He looked, turned round, only to discover that the chop had moved six feet or so since he had dropped it and was now being held captive under the kitchen table by a ginger and black paw, in case her sister came upon this miraculous piece of meat that had just happened to fall from nowhere! On this occasion, he had to accept his losses…

   On the other hand, impromptu or informal entertaining, as Kate quotes in 5. is more my style. A lot of the other faculty in my school (where I teach fifth grade) know that I have a not so secret stash of chocolate in one of my classroom cupboards… after staff meetings, or when we have a trying moment, entertainment happens. And then I have to join in with the chocolate consumption, as it is more hospitable that way…

   by Rudolf on June 26th, 2007 at 5:33 pm
   
   

7. Love the cat thief story, Rudolf. I threw a big Thanksgiving dinner for my entire family one year and had a stick of fresh butter in a butter dish sitting on the counter, ready to be moved to the table when guests arrived. I left the kitchen for ten minutes and came back to find my cat on the counter happily licking off the top of the entire stick. By the time I’d finished scraping off enough to insure that no one would be eating kitty spit on their bread I was ashamed to put it out. It was a very dry meal.

   Kate

   by Kate Collins on June 26th, 2007 at 8:51 pm
   
   

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