hosting in style
If you are lucky, you know someone who knows how to host a great gathering. Whether it’s a milestone birthday party, a graduation buffet, or an intimate dinner for their closest friends, that great host can take a space, great music, delicious food and drinks, and turn them into a memorable event. A consummate host, however, can take a night when everything goes wrong and turn that into laughs and memories.
It takes a lot of work, grit, and confidence to become that kind of host, but I think that’s what all of us who open our homes to others want to accomplish. For me, I love to plan a menu with a theme and delicious ingredients, but when time gets away from me, I unravel a little and forget to enjoy myself. I know that when people come over, they’ll have an okay time. But I am not that person who can make a get-together into an event. I need help getting to that next level.
Enter Mariana Velasquez. Chef, food stylist, restaurant designer, cookbook author, and host extraordinaire, Velasquez is here with help. Her new cookbook, Revel, is a masterclass in creating events that people will talk about for years. She elevates a dinner party to a dance, a brunch into a banquet, an afternoon tea to an event. She offers tips from the planning and preparations to recipes to tips on how to roll with the things that go wrong and make the most of the time with friends and family.
Revel is organized into get-togethers by time of day. For Morning Rituals, you can choose from her Solo Breakfast in Bed, Brunch That Held Us, Busy Mornings with Houseguests, or if it was the party the night before that still seems to be lingering in unpleasant ways, there is The Next-Day Cure, with a soup that can help with a hangover. There are ideas for midday (Summer Picnic on the Dock, Cool and Composed Made-Ahead Lunch), afternoon (All Things Aperitivo, Deconstructed Pie Bar), or evening (A Manhattan Dance Party, Wednesday Dinner).
And if all that still seems like too much, she’s there with more advice. When in Doubt: Red Wine, Red Lips, and a Roast Chicken.
Each gathering idea includes snacks, drinks, and desserts (when appropriate) as well as ideas for decorating, lists of things to do in the days running up to the event, and beautiful, inspiring photos of food and atmosphere to bring to mind ideas that will work for you. The recipes are based on seasonal produce and many are meat-free, if you’re needing ideas for vegetarian friends. And while very few of these recipes take an exceptionally long time to prepare, everything feels a little bit special, unfussy but elegant.
While these specific parties and recipes may not be for everyone, the ideas behind them, the planning, the processes, the colors, the sounds, the inspiration—these are universal. And just understanding how Velasquez thinks about putting together a party will help me to be more thoughtful about my future get-togethers.
Just like her events, Velasquez has put a lot of work and effort into planning this cookbook, and it shows. From the beautifully styled photos to the menus, everything about Revel is deliberate. The one thing I found missing was holidays. While she talked about a Christmas that she hosted, she didn’t include any specific plans for holiday get-togethers. While many of these party ideas would work around holidays, I would love to see another cookbook from Velasquez much like this one that focuses on those times of year when family and friends are most likely to come together. Until then, we will just have to stick with afternoon teas and dance parties.
Ten Speed Press provided me with a free copy of Revel, with many thanks, but the opinions are my own.
