southern hospitality from a top chef
You may know Kelsey Barnard Clark best from the season she won Top Chef, but it’s entertaining that is her love language. She created a catering company to spend time creating events that would bring together her skills as a chef and her ability to create a sense of place and celebration that she could share with others. And now she’s written a book that can help anyone bring that sense of celebration into the big moments of their lives, and also into the everyday family meals that bring us together at the end of each day.
If you’re wanting to plan a perfect brunch or a neighborhood cookout, she has a plan for you. From stocking your pantry and setting the table to planning the menu and creating a unique centerpiece, KBC has you covered. She has been hosting events for over 20 years, so she knows all the mistakes. She’s recovered from them, and she helps her readers prepare for what they can and roll with the ones you can’t prepare for. With a few simple hosting rules (like communicating with your guests what’s going on, even when it’s all going wrong), then having people over just gets easier.
As a chef trained in mise in place (a term for getting all the ingredients for a dish ready before you start cooking it), Clark starts by getting everything in place for hosting. She talks about the place settings, silverware, and linens you’ll need. It’s not about spending a lot of money but creating a collection of essentials that feel right for you. Then she helps you stock your pantry so you can be ready for surprises. Then she helps you stock your bar and gives a few pointers to be a better host (or a better guest, the next time you get the invitation), and then it’s on to the party ideas.
For each party, she comes up with an entire menu and the recipes you can use to create her perfect party. There is the All-Day Bash that calls for a Low Country Boil, where she suggests also having Hot Dogs with Chili and all the Fixings. There’s the BYO Steak Night, where you can fire up the grill and furnish the sides while the guests bring their own steaks and grill them to the temperature that makes them happy. She suggests Twice-Baked Potatoes, Compound Butters for the steaks, a Grilled Southern Caesar Salad and a Carnegie Deli-Inspired Cheesecake. For more formal dinners, there is the Paella Night or the Fearless French Dinner with Boeuf Bourguinon, French Potato and Green Bean Salad, Chocolate Souffles, and a Big Batch French 75.
Throughout the book are beautiful photos of the tables, the foods, and the Southern parties that KBC gets to host all the time. The photos of the food make everything look delectable, and the grace and polish of the table settings conjure up ideas for barbecues, brunches, and dinner parties. And while Clark throws around y’alls like a good Southerner and talks about tailgating, know that her recipes are based not just on her Southern food she grew up on but from the Michelin-starred restaurants she once worked in. Her flavors are sophisticated and borrow from world cuisines, so when she talks about her favorite Ramen Sundays, know that she is basing her recipes on flavors she picked up in Asia, not just the International aisle of the Piggly Wiggly.
I am a big fan of Top Chef, and I watched the season that featured Clark, of course. It was in Kentucky, and I loved watching the chefs learn about the region and seeing how fierce the native Southern chefs were. I was excited to get a chance to read her cookbook, and while it is inspiring to see her host events large and small, I’m not sure I’m cut out to be a great hostess. But still, I learned a lot from this book and came away with some ideas on how to celebrate life’s smaller moments more and being a better guest. You don’t have to want to plan a formal dinner party to get something out of this book, but if you do want to host more parties, this a good place to learn how to make that game plan.
Egalleys for Southern Get-Togethers were provided by Chronicle Books through Edelweiss, with many thanks.
