All Hail the Bloody Mary

The Bloody Mary is a sweet, spicy, savory cocktail for taking with on the road and sipping when the sun is still high in the sky.  While this is undoubtedly the best recipe, there are a million and two ways to customize with garnishes: dilly beans, a celery stalk, skewered olives, pickled okra, even candied bacon if you're feeling frisky.  This is traditionally a brunch beverage -- our motto is no bloodies after 2PM, but the bottom line is it's your life & you can do what you please.

Whether going for a picnic or tailgating for the big game, show up with a tank of these + a bottle of vodka and you will undoubtedly be named MVP.

Diner en Blanc

We're going to Diner en Blanc -- an elegant flash mob dinner to convene outdoors at a previously undisclosed location in downtown Charleston on October 15th.  The event originated in Paris but is now held all over the world.  The idea is for everyone to wear white and to conduct themselves with utmost decorum and grace, despite the innate spontaneity of the occasion and casual nature of a picnic.

We can't wait!  Here are just a few things the Dean and company will be sure to include in our picnic basket : 

• Grapes & Soft Cheese
• Deviled Eggs
• Gougeres -- stuffed with chicken salad or just plain.
• Salmon Canapes
• Cold-Fried Chicken.  The Dean loves homemade fried chicken but shout-out to Publix for their not-too-shabby stand-in when we are en route to the dock, the beach, or a super-secret picnic location like DeB.
• Most importantly..these truly genius Sandwiches from goat.sheep.cow!  The first-rate cheese shop, owned by dynamic duo Patti & Trudy, is located ever-so-conveniently right around the corner from us.  The sandwiches are a trade secret (we eat them on a weekly basis) but the crew comes to the Academy in early November for a cocktail-hour class on pairing cheese with champagne, cider, and Madeira.  Look for it on our Calendar soon.

The Dean holds that the blankets and pillows are equally important as the food at a picnic.  Be sure they go with the setting and that there is enough room for everyone to lounge comfortably, Luncheon on the Grass-style.

FYI -- it's not too late to join us at Diner en Blanc -- purchase your tickets HERE.

XOXO, the Academy

Last-Minute Centerpiece

Everyone knows that a table set for a dinner party should have a commanding conversation piece at it's center.  But somehow this small, still crucial, detail seems easy to forget until the moment guests are knocking at the front door.  Don't panic.  Check your fridge -- is there a forgotten can of beer in the crisper?  (Why is there always beer in our crisper?)  Open it, take a sip, relax!  Are there a couple bunches of cilantro/parsley/chives/thyme/rosemary in there, too?  Make a last-minute centerpiece...

No need to let said herbs go to waste afterwards.  Hopefully, you had big plans for them all along.  If not, make an omelette for breakfast tomorrow.  Make a frittata and take it to a picnic on a grassy knoll.  Gather any leftover stems in a mason jar, plus a few wildflowers if you see any.  Spontaneity FTW.

But, if spontaneous centerpieces are not your thing, we get it.  In October, Lily Peterson of local Flowershop fame comes to the Academy for the first in a three-course workshop all about assembling your own bouquets, centerpieces, and wreaths just in time for the Holidays.  (Tickets may be purchased HERE starting 10/1.)

A Simple Vinaigrette for Any Salad

Start with a beautiful wooden bowl.  Add a basic bunch of leafy greens or go ahead and assemble a fanciful mix of late Summer fruit and early Fall root vegetables.  Top it all off with croutons and this quick & easy vinaigrette, which owes its creamy texture not to actual cream but to the magic of emulsification.

There you have it!  You can thank us (and Science) later.

XO, the Academy

SALAD DAYS & SALAD NIGHTS

Salads are a life staple, so that means salad accoutrements are too.

Dean Pollak has lived long enough to know she has constructed over 25,000 salads. We will not divulge how we arrived at that number -- math is not our strong suit -- but it is absolutely accurate and means you should pay attention.

There are many reasons we insist that you take note of your salad bowls, salad servers, pepper grinders and salt cellars. Foremost, all the paraphernalia is essential in making salads addictive, beautiful, fun to construct, and will get your family on the daily salad wagon without rebuttal. Health concerns are the least of the reasons our lunchroom serves a big bowl everyday. We like fattening salads. We like thinning salads. We like beautiful salads. We like bread salads, also known as panzanella. But we like playing with wooden bowls, like the ones at The-Commons, around the corner on Broad Street, most of all!

Who doesn’t long to fill a gorgeous handmade bowl? Even kids do and will. A big wooden bowl is a thing of beauty. In fact, the only thing more beautiful is several wooden bowls nesting in each other, letting you choose how many people will eat your salad.

Collections are fun to start. We suggest that if you haven’t collected anything yet, you begin with salad bowls. Let us be your guides. As with any collection, done carefully over years, a collection swells and takes up real estate, so the objects might as well be useful to use and beautiful to look at. Handmade bowls will make your kitchen feel more grounded, your knowledge of wood expand, your waistline shrink, your menu decisions easier. Plus, the number of guests eating salad can start at one or grow to twenty -- three full 18-inch bowls will easily feed a crowd.

You can never go wrong serving a salad, whether it's a simple green one or a confetti of colors and surprises. They always delight.

A few suggested themes:

• Color, e.g. Yellow - yellow beets (roasted early in the day or even a day before, sliced thickly or cubed), wedges of yellow heirloom tomatoes, croutons count as yellow, slices of pear.
• Simple Green – sliced endive and watercress tossed with blue cheese.
• Seasonal, e.g. Fall - roasted root vegetables tossed with escarole, radicchio, red cabbage, topped with rare cold steak.

Ancient Wisdom: Get your kids on the job of helping in the kitchen and a green leaf just might make it past their lips.

• Toddlers can toss the salad. The utensils pictured above are especially easy and fun for little kids to use.
• Elementary school-aged children can become proficient in washing lettuce in a salad spinner.
• Middle schoolers can try their hand with knives -- chopping, peeling, and slicing.
• High schoolers can and should be in charge of dinner at least once a week. Let them dream up their own salad...even if it ends up being popcorn salad, do not judge!

Finally, here are a few Academy salads from the vault...

Happy Healthy!

Academy Croutons

Nothing makes our Daily Salad sing quite like giant cubes of bread, sautéed in olive oil.

At the Academy, we've long realized that simple luxuries make the mundane sparkle.  An effortless sleight of hand in the almighty cast-iron skillet gives a guilt-free lunch the illusion of indulgence.  A bowl of vegetables, particularly those perfectly in season, should never bore anyone to tears.  In fact, it could be the very thing that carries you from the salad days of Summer to the Autumn's longing embrace.

For a superlative salad, start with late Summer's leafy greens and slices of ripe fruit, gently tossed with roasted early Fall vegetables.  Just add Croutons.  Here's the secret: don't skimp on the EVOO!  And always remember, "A cold crouton is a useless crouton."

An Enlightening Speech (and a Pitcher of Manhattans) at Drayton Hall

Drayton Hall Lecture Series at Society Hall; Carter Hudgins: Preserving the Past, Preparing the Future: Celebrating Ten Years of Wood Family Fellows at Drayton Hall.  [Full schedule here.]

The Charleston Academy loves house museums. We are endlessly curious about every nook and cranny of these behemoth beauties from the 18 and 19th Century -- how they were designed, who lived in them, daily schedules -- but mostly we want to figure out if there is anything they did that we should be doing in our own households right now.

On September 17th at Society Hall, Carter Hudgins, acting director of Drayton Hall (America’s first Palladian house, now a house museum), held the audience at Society Hall in rapt attention as he wove historical facts, personalities, stories, photos past and present and described the Wood Family Fellowship’s impact on Drayton Hall, ending with an emotional punch.

Among the lessons learned:

• John Drayton is something like an 18th century version of Austin Powers, International Man of Mystery.  Based on Drayton Hall’s architecture and other material culture such as the Edwards watercolors, it is clear that Drayton is well-educated and must have spent time in the UK.  However, Drayton Hall doesn’t have any hard written evidence of his travels or education. 

• The impact of a family foundation run correctly for ten years spreads far and wide.  The Wood Family used a tragedy -- Tony Wood's brother's death as a young college graduate working as a restoration apprentice at Drayton Hall in  1980 and the death fourteen years later of his parents -- to establish a fellowship in the family name ten years ago. This position breathed new life and knowledge into Drayton Hall, and gave nine young scholars a career path.

• Our messy basements are nothing!  One fellow, Sarah Stroud, organized over one million artifacts stored in zip lock containers since the 1970’s according to excavation context, i.e. in both horizontal and vertical manners. Think of the entire site with an imaginary grid of 5-foot squares superimposed on landscape.  Sarah worked to identify which squares the artifacts came from as well as from layer of soil in the ground.  Thankfully the artifacts were labeled with these details in the 1970s and 1980s.  Now they are being cataloged to learn about what happened across site at various times.  Less than 2% of entire site has been excavated, yet more than one million artifacts have been recovered.

• Find measuring drapes or hanging paintings difficult? Trish Smith, another Wood Family Foundation fellow, puts us to shame. With the help of Natalie Woodward, Trish meticulously measured every inch of Drayton Hall to develop AutoCAD drawings.  Then she took these drawings forward to complete 3D renderings, so the early interiors, paint colors, furniture, lighting is another aspect of the house museum experience.

Before the Society Hall event, the Academy hosted a small reception to honor Carter Hudgins and Tony Wood. The party was only one hour long, but it was the first reception in a night of many.

Our advice on staging a 4:30PM cocktail party for 25:

• Choose one specialty cocktail and only two, at most three, hor’s doervers. NO MORE.

• Make the guest of honor’s favorite drink. NO reason to set up a full bar; guests don’t need to make decisions.  And FYI, even at that hour, folks in Charleston will drink a cocktail.

• If there are many parties in one night, insist on yours being first. Yours will be the most memorable -- too much drinking at the other parties makes later memories blurry ☺ -- plus your workload is easier.  Nobody wants much to eat  much at 4:30.

On the Bar:

• A pitcher of Manhattans

• Perrier & white wine

• Bowls of pistachios, Parmesan crisps & chips and guacamole.

A Pitcher of Manhattans

Serves 12

3 cups rye whiskey

1 ½ cups sweet vermouth

1 teaspoon Angostura bitters

ICE (Pro. Tip: You can never have enough ice at a party.)

Brandied cherries

Combine whiskey, vermouth and bitters in a pitcher. Stir and store in refrigerator until guests arrive. Put large ice cubes in silver cups or crystal coupes, pour in cocktail and garnish with cherry.

POP QUIZ: Set the Table

It's Friday, and it's time for a POP QUIZ!!!  Pencils out...eyes on your own paper...

Relax, kids.  This one is not for credit.  All we want to know is: how do you set the table for a dinner party?  Ever wonder if you are doing it correctly?  Let the Dean show you how it's done, three different ways.

September 2015 DEAN'S LIST

These are a few of our favorite things...

Clockwise from 11 O'clock:

• Ostrich Kelly Handbag - Hermes (25 years ago!)
• Wooden Bowl, filled with limes for Muchas Margaritas - from a fallen tree on our lot at the Ford Plantation in Richmond Hill, Georgia. 
• Candle - Taffin
• A Curious Invitation
• Petrified Wood Coasters - found while shopping in NYC
• Embroidered "Cocktail" Napkins - vintage, but our favorites are from Leron.
• Silk Scarf - Ibu
• Olive Bowl Set - vintage Steuben
• Bronze Bowl with almonds - from a friend/ceramicist in NYC
• Gold Serving Tray - Moss (sadly, no longer in business.)
• Printed Brass Tray - Somalia
• Cocktail Glass - vintage Steuben, "Tortoise" pattern
• Bourbon - Pappy : )

What are your favorite things?  To nominate a product of you own for appearance on an upcoming Dean's List, contact us!

First Fall Field Trip a Smashing Success!

While it is the mission of all Academy classes to teach students a new way to engage in their homes, the first Honors Society field trip to Point of Pines, Edisto Island, SC, offered a glimpse at what what it means to live on (and off) the Lowcountry land...18th century style.

Less than an hour's drive south of Charleston, the Point of Pines estate remains a hidden gem hidden within still off-the-beaten-path Edisto.  As the unofficial Academy school bus arrived for a day of exploring the property, constructing beehives, carving wooden handles, and eating the way Nature intended, PoP Owner Burnie Maybank went about the first order: concocting a potent yellow chartreuse and fresh grapefruit punch based on a recipe from the French Laundry.  (Actually, he charged two of us with making a pitcher, and dismayed at how long it took, promptly began mixing up a second batch before the first had even been poured!  Long story short, we renamed our version the "Pole-Dancer.")

A sense of drama unravelled (along with our inhibitions) after such a high-spirited welcome -- cocktails combined with woodworking on the lathe, an elaborate supper made from humble ingredients, a rugged Gator mobile nearly overturned, and Burnie's mastery in the fine arts of farming, fishing, woodworking and cuisine, despite his initial impression as the cigar chain-smoking former Tax Commissioner of SC.  

Burnie also proved a master at putting everyone to work to the sultry tunes of Patsy Cline.  Eight businesspeople from LA, Atlanta, NYC, Chicago, were quickly cajoled out of their comfort zone and set to task at something they had never done before: pulling crab traps out of a tidal creek, choosing eggs from the hen house, foraging for chanterelles along the side of a country road, and harvesting fist-sized okra, melons still ripe on the vine, and the last of the leeks straight from the garden.  

Under Burnie's finely tuned direction, the bounty was collectively transformed into a three-course farm-to-table feast fit for kings.  The first course of Edisto Seafood Stew, freshly steamed Stone and Blue Crabs, and Cheddar Biscuits; turned to a second course of local Tea-Smoked Ribs, Roasted Chanterelles, Watermelon & Mint Salad, and Green Salad with Lima Beans cooked Ham Hock; and finally dessert of homemade Peach Ice Cream straight from the churn.  Divine!

At the end of the day, we were all reminded of what is glorious and unique about life in the Carolina Lowcountry, and vowed to put the lessons of simple, sustainable, everyday luxuries learned at Point of Pines to use in our own abodes, wherever they may be.

CADP Mentions

There seems to be a flurry of Academy news, interviews, and posts all over the World Wide Web!  When the attention comes from such lovely ladies with blogs to match, we simply have to share.

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9/8 - Gray is the New Blond

Lisa, from Atlanta, GA, blogs "to encourage women to become their best selves as they age, without worrying about someone else's traditions, labels or stereotypes."  After attending an Academy class, she called on the Dean for an exclusive interview on just that.

"What I Learned from the Charleston Academy of Domestic Pursuits"

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9/15 - Because I Say So

Your guide to etiquette, sage advice & wisdom, saucy wit, scrumptious food & serendipitous retail, with Mimi & Mademoiselle.

"Serendipitous Southern Hospitality," "20Q with Dean of Southern Etiquette Suzanne Pollak," "The Academy's Southern Biscuit," "Family Matters," "Roger Vivier"

9/15 - Meristocracy

Noun: A State Governed by Mer, Superior and Elite in Ruling

"The Dean"

The Academy Roast

Our secret weapon?  Sans question: Pork Butt in Milk.

When a dinner party (or just dinner) looms at the end of a long day of work or play, all that's needed is an inexpensive pork butt + salt, sugar, milk + 8 hours to set-it-and-forget-it.  What will emerge from your oven is a feat of invention and alchemy -- tender, flavorful meat with just a hint of the perfect crust -- even the Dean cannot explain.

There are a million and ten ways to serve this, but we like it as the main dish with a side of Cabbage Slaw (recipe below, straight out of the Academy Handbook) and Ice Cream Sundaes for dessert.

CABBAGE SLAW,

The Pork's Perfect Partner.

1/2 red cabbage, shredded

6 bunches scallions

1 large knob (2-3 tbsp.) of ginger, minced (in a mini food processor if you have one.)

2 tbsp. olive oil

2 tbsp. light soy sauce

1 tbsp. rice wine vinegar

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

In a large bowl, mix all the ingredients and let macerate for up to 1 hour.  Make banh mi sandwiches the next day with leftover pork and cabbage; sprinkle with chopped jalapeño.

Thanks to the long line of Italian cooks and Marcella Hazan for passing on the magic of Pork Butt in Milk.  May it find itself in perpetual rotation on your dining table, to wide and illustrious acclaim, just as it does on ours, without fail.

(And P.S.  If you are in search of more tried-and-true Roasting Pan recipes, tips, and tricks, there are just a couple of tickets left for our class at the end of September...)

Quick Tips for a Hallway Arrangement

Along with your warm greeting, a punchy party soundtrack, the scent of a something delicious to come, and a stiff cocktail at the ready -- the thoughtful placement of an eye-catching arrangement by the front door should be the first thing to welcome guests to your home.  

It doesn't have to be an elaborate bouquet (...not that we would ever protest.)  All you really need are a few interesting leaves and branches, clipped from the garden/yard/public park across the street, in the dark of night, so local law enforcement and nosey neighbors don't notice you at work.

The Dean is not here to judge anyone's methods for procuring their flora, but simply to offer quick & easy instruction for arranging them.  Without further ado:

Essential Dinners: Stock Pot 9/23

At the Academy, we live and die by our many useful mottos.  One is, Beware of recipes that require you to buy more equipment!  With this in mind, we established our Essential Dinners series, in order to teach students to utilize the standard workhorses already sitting in their home kitchens.

Starting with the trusty Stock Pot and a saucepan, improve your repertoire of one-dish dinner party standouts, and get a leg up on the busy work week with freezer-friendly family meals.  Let the Dean show you how to make stock, soup, stew, and gumbo so you too can make four dinners, for dozens, in just one morning -- enough food for tonight, tomorrow, and next week's dinner party.

The Academy lunchroom will be positively overflowing, so stay for lunch!  Join the Dean at her table, where she will reveal her simple secrets for making each recipe stand out, and the trick to cooking multiple recipes at the same time.  Go home with new recipes you will feel confident executing on your own at home, plus kitchen wisdom, entertaining tips, new friends, and all the leftovers you can carry...

After a single Academy class, the only question is: what can't you accomplish?

Why Buy Sauce in a Jar?

Marcello's tomato sauce came in a jar.

Sofia made hers the Academy's way.

All right, technically, this recipe for Tomato Sauce takes Ten Minutes to make, plus 45 to cook while you check something else off the list.  But 45 minutes is positively nothing in kitchen years.  Just ask our trusty mascot & dog-bud Teddy.  He's 106 but feels like he's seven (until it comes to hiking up the five flights of Academy stairs...)

A perfect homemade tomato sauce is easier than you think, and tastes 1,000,000x better than anything you can find at the supermarket.

Listen folks, it's hot.  The only good thing about being in the Carolina Lowcountry this time of year are the TOMATOES!!!  Only, we're tired of salads and sandwiches.  Aren't you?  Take ten minutes out of your afternoon, whip up this little Stock Pot delicacy, and let it simmer.  

No need to tend.  Set the table!  Make some croutons!  Make yourself a martini.  Put on some mambo music.  Take a bath.  Oh yeah, make some pasta.  Top it with Sauce, maybe some basil if yours survived the heat.   Everything is going to be okay, babies.  Mangia!

It only takes 5 minutes and 3 ingredients to make 1 pitcher of margaritas...

OK, OK, 4 ingredients if you count salt.

Sorry to drill it home but Labor Day weekend has arrived (yes, it officially starts Friday AM, class dismissed!) and Summer is packing her bags while Fall cha cha's in the back door.

But it's still hot as Hades in Charleston, and the rain seems like it might wash us all to sea.  Your life raft: a few friends/neighbors, a sassy hat, and a pitcher of margaritas you can make faster than you can say, "Siri, find me a Mariachi Band."  Sassy hat optional.  Mariachi band...strongly encouraged.

It only takes FIVE minutes and THREE ingredients (plus salt) to make ONE pitcher of margaritas.

Give that old Summer feeling a proper farewell. 

XOXO, the Deans

P.S.  Pro. Tip #1:  

P.P.S. Pro. Tip #2: Do not drink the pitcher all by yourself.  One margarita usually does the trick, but two could have you feeling ten feet tall, bulletproof, and wild as a hornet's nest.  That's what happened to a friend of ours one time, anyway...

So Long, Summer

The solstice may be fleeting, but September has arrived & the Academy is in session!  Time for a new season of classes, starting with our quintessential Essential Dinners series.  If you anticipate finding yourself surrounded by hungry friends/partners/kids/co-workers (or even all alone, just starving little old you) and fresh out of satisfying dinner plans, here's your answer.

On Wednesday mornings in late September/early October, let the Dean show you how she wields the workhorses of the kitchen -- the Stock Pot, the Roasting Pan, and the almighty Cast-Iron Skillet -- for Suppertime glory.  Learn how to make everything from Gumbo to freeze-able stocks, from the Academy's prized Pork Butt in Milk to roasted root vegetables, from cheesy rice to eggplant everyone will eat.  Then, enjoy lunch in the Academy dining hall while the Dean fields all of your burning kitchen- (or even non-kitchen-) related inquiries.  

For more information on the Essential Dinners series, check out our calendar or purchase tickets here. 

Breakfast is for Champions

Dean Manigault perpetually whines to Dean Pollak that she wants to lose weight, wah-wah. She also always wants her lunch at eleven o'clock. This is because she never eats breakfast. Dean Pollak is astounded that Dean Manigault doesn't know the first credo about losing weight. Breakfast is the essential key element of all thin people. Here's what Dean Pollak knows to be a medical fact: if you wake up and you are not hungry you ate too much the night before.

You should be so hungry upon waking up that you must eat breakfast. Not eating breakfast is out of the question. If Dean Pollak gets Dean Manigault to change one single thing about her life, it will be that she eats breakfast. She is not talking about eggs, bacon, grits, sausage and biscuits. Neither is she talking about pancakes or French toast, although as once a week treats those are all fantastic, especially if they get you to eat breakfast. Dean Pollak eats boring Fiber One and a banana four mornings a week, but Dean Pollak can also wear the same jeans as she did in high school. 

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SMOOTHIE

SERVES 2

INGREDIENTS

1 cup strawberries or other berries, frozen

1 cup ice cubes

1 cup water

1/2 cup raw almonds, cashews, or walnuts (preferably soaked for several hours in water)

1/2 medium avocado

1 tablespoon chia seeds, soaked at least 30 minutes and/or overnight

2 to 3 tablespoons pure maple syrup

1 to 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

2 to 3 drops Wild Orange essential oil, preferably doTerra or other ingestible brand (Optional)

1.  Puree all the ingredients together in a sturdy blender.  

*The measurements are not exact because some people like a thick yogurt-like consistency that requires a spoon, while others prefer a liquid that's sippable right out of a glass.

The choice is yours.  We can already see your inner glow.

A Soon to Be Lost Art

Entertaining children at home is a forgotten art.  Helicopter parents over-schedule their children with soccer, art camps, swim teams; anything so as not to have a moment of down time.  

Recently, one of our first grade friends and fans told us about an incident at school. She was incensed when a classmate took over her job as door monitor and had a solution to end the tyranny. She got her backpack and whacked her classmate over the head! We admire her pluck and verve but could not endorse this tactic as a life long plan and her school and parents certainly did not. When she returned home from school, her parents 'punishment' was to have her sit out the nightly TV program with her sister and to help with evening chores instead.  But guess what?  She loved the extra time with her parents.  We were reminded anew that children don't find house work the chore we do if they can learn and be with their parents.  All children might not love the added chores as much as this budding domestic goddess, but they will enjoy having added responsibility. 

Dean Manigault went to her ex-husband's plantation with her daughter and a friend of hers.  There was no wifi, so all attendees were forced to be 'present'.  It was freezing cold so the children were tasked with keeping the fires stoked and the log piles plentiful.  Dinner was provided by Dean Manigault but breakfast and lunch was the time tested "if you can reach it, you can eat it".  The kids were a bit inventive when left to their own menu choices, but no one starved and the kids reveled in their new autonomy.  In fact, Gigi cracked the spine of the Academy cookbook for the first time ever and created the egg strata all by herself. All the entertainments were "in house" and there was lots of downtime together.  It is so much fun to get young people's perspective on the world today.

EGG STRATA

SERVES 6

INGREDIENTS

1 sourdough boule sliced 3/4 inch thick

6 tablespoons unsalted butter

Thin slices of Gruyere or cheddar, enough to cover bread on bottom of pan

6 eggs

3 cups whole milk

1 pound bulk sausage, browned

1.  Grease a 9-by-11 inch glass or ceramic baking dish.  Spread both sides of the bread with the butter.  Layer the bread in the bottom of the baking dish.  Top with the cheese.

2.  In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs and milk.  Pour over the bread, up to a 1/2 inch below the top of the baking dish.  Any more liquid will bubble over when cooking.  Add the sausage.  Cover and refrigerate the strata overnight or for up to 2 days.

3.  Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.  Bake the strata until puffy and golden brown, 45 minutes to 1 hour. 

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Unstructured time at home is a gift and should be treated as such.  When time is over scheduled outside the home- the domestic skills are left to wither on the vine.  Quiet time together in your own house is not the modern day boogyman.  Quite the opposite.  Revel in before your children are permanently gone and you missed your chance to get to know them and what they can do!

Find creative recipes for everyday & special events

read a recent review of the Deans and their "Handbook of Etiquette with Recipes".

Raucous Guests

One reason people don't entertain is that they are worried about how their guests will behave.  People are right to worry.  Every once in a blue moon a guest will act out of line.  It is extremely rare, but explosive when it happens.  The Deans have seen people throw napkins, insult one another, get too drunk, and even get up and storm out the door.  As searing as the moment is at the time, it can electrify the party and unite the guests against a common cause.

As always, it is not what happens but how it is handled that matters.  As captain of the event, you must maintain your composure and lead your ship-ful of guests to calmer waters.  When your  attendees see you rising above the occasion, they realize that they can, too. They will form their own opinion about what happened.  Sometimes bad behavior is a one off and can be excused.  Other times the person is a reprobate and needs to be expunged from your life.