My Entertaining Basics

This year we are definitely not entertaining as much as we usually would with the pandemic and all, however we have finally started getting together with smaller groups of friends and it reminded me of how much I love entertaining. I am definitely no chef and cooking is not really a part of my ‘entertaining’ guidebook. My 3 main ingredients for a good hangout? Snacks, Setting the Scene, and Music.

Music is probably the easiest, make a playlist that is not too aggressively noisy, I love a good saxophone song or something that works well as background music, as the evening progresses can definitely make it more dance-y sing along song vibes. Obviously music is very personal and if you know your friend group all collectively likes a certain genre then go with that, but my advice is more universal for when you don’t know people’s specific music types.

Snacks wise my friends all know my go-to is an enormous cheeseboard piled high with many different cheeses (always a soft one like goat or boursin or triple creme brie, smoked gouda, a cheddar or pepperjack and sometimes a few fruity/salty ones for flair). Recently I learned its best to pre-cut all the cheese or as much as you want to serve rather than leaving the chunk on the board and cutting only a few slices, no one wants to be mid sentence and have to cut their own cheese. It also looks nicer when all of the cheese is cut up and you make the board look super full. Crackers are self explanatory and I also recommend putting some smaller bowls of olives and nuts too and some charcuterie. You can get really crazy and add dips and veggies, always add at least one fruit or veggie on the board though for color.

Setting the scene: make sure you have enough seating for everyone, if you need to move a table out of the way to accommodate more couch space or whatever your layout is make sure all the barstools, couches, chairs are spruced up for people to sit down if they want to. I love to get fresh flowers, not overkill, but just a bouquet split up into a few vases around the house. I also love to light a candle or two an hour before guests arrive to make sure the place smells really nice. It probably goes without saying but vacuum, wipe off the counters, do the dishes etc. so you don’t have to be doing as much during your get together.

That’s really it, of course for dinner parties there will be a few more details but these are my go to moves. Happy entertaining!