Host An Epic Halloween Party With Gnarly Head Wines

Tis the season for extreme pumpkin carving, gnarly selfies, and bone-chilling haunted houses. Get into the spirit with an epic Halloween party and Gnarly Head Wines. Photo Courtesy of the Gnarly Head

Halloween is one of the most popular holidays of the year—and not just for kids anymore. It turns out adults also want to make costumes, carve pumpkins, and turn their abodes into terrifying haunted houses. For this spookiest of celebrations, plan a ghoulish bash for friends and family complete with seasonal appetizers and great wines, like Gnarly Head Old Vine Zinfandel. Over the years, locals in Lodi, California, have noticed that around this time of year, the old gnarled vines which produce Gnarly Head take on an almost eerie appearance; some say, the unruly branches even look like a sea of hands growing from the soil.

In the planning stages, choose a theme, like Saints and Sinners, or say, Vampires Vs. Werewolves. Zombies are another recent fave—as in zombie cheerleaders, zombie superheroes, and zombie clowns. Download the new Gnarly Booth photo app, available on both the iTunes and Google Play app stores, and kick off all things ghoulish, spooky, and fun with this digital tool that "gnarlifies" your pics. Take a photo and then create an invite to send out at least two weeks beforehand. Then, in the days before the party, update your profile pic every few days to build buzz (think: gnarlified jack o'-lanterns; gnarlified pets; gnarlified friends).

About a week before, get down to the serious task of planning a menu and a beat-heavy playlist. Pour yourself a glass of Gnarly Head Old Vine Zinfandel and let the ideas flow. Keep your music choices upbeat so people will dance (or even do the monster mash). For another cool effect, jot down some classic Halloween movies to project on a wall; the kitschier the better, like silent black-and-white vampire flicks from the '30s. Of course, you’ll also want to have a solid selection of culinary tricks-and-treats for guests to sink their teeth (or plastic fangs) into, like bite-size pumpkin pies. For vino, Gnarly Head Old Vine Zinfandel is the perfect go-to with its rich core of dark raspberry and black cherry and layers of spice and chocolate.

Encourage guests to wear costumes—and to be creative with the theme. During the party, set up a Gnarly Booth, where guests can use the app to take wicked selfies on your tablet or smartphone; they can provide a continuous stream of party pics. For added fun, supply a few pumpkins for an extreme pumpkin-carving contest. The highly coveted prize? A bottle of Gnarly Head Old Vine Zinfandel to take home. This powerful wine, which is carefully crafted from full-flavored grapes grown on some of the oldest vines in California, is the ideal reward for intense competition.

For more information on Gnarly Head Wines, please find them on facebook: www.facebook.com/gnarlyheadwines

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Swiss chard & cheese party

Cheese tasting in Paris you will find often artisanal butters in the midst of the spread because the creaminess of the plush or sharpness of certain cheeses can amplify butter. The same is true with wines such as Chardonnay, whose aromas and flavors of only rich allusions to cream and butter, almost dripping with it. If you choose an Unoaked, moderately oaked or full on Oak chard, there is a wine style for any style of cheese. Photo courtesy of Sonoma Cutrer

If attention awhile to Chardonnay you didn't because it "to suave" are happy to learn that the producers have you heard and now many Mangold create contact, or none, with terms such as "Unoaked" or "Virgin" on the label with only minimal oak (barrel). Chablis, in the French region of Burgundy, is the standard-bearer of the Unoaked chard. Sonoma-Cutrer Russian River ranches Chardonnay is an example of restrained oak, assertive acidity to offset by minimal creaminess. Best cheeses, pair with these fruity, crisp, mineral Mangold tend to be young, semifirm cheese such as Asiago, fontina, Gouda, Jack and why not, Ossau-Iraty (a nutty goat cheese from Spain).

Moderately oaked Mangold dance the tightrope walk between elegance and wealth; Their creamy roundness is balanced with bright, mouthwatering acidity and highlighted with aromas and flavors of Apple, pear and lemon zest. Sonoma-Cutrer Sonoma Coast Chardonnay is a good example of this style, fusion of flavours to golden delicious Apple, Bosc pear and white peach with toasted nuts, Oak spice and a touch of butter. A cheese pairing strategy with this medium-bodied wine is as decadent, creamy triple creams, such as Camembert, Brie and Explorateur. A touch of sharpness is an attractive shade to pair with the wines.

When it comes to offer Chardonnays, which are aged and fermented in oak barrels, the balance and elegance, you get what you pay for. While each one daily $10-loves chard, can not reach a great Grand Cru White Burgundy or a Burgundian style Chardonnay from the new world. Les Pierres Chardonnay Sonoma-Cutrer has the best of both worlds with classic stony minerality, caramelized oak and toasted spice aromas and flavors to integrate beautifully with refreshing, citrus flavors. Cheese, powerful, elegant wines pair well with this in the rule are pungent cheese the most powerful, especially the "Blues" such as Roquefort, Stilton, gorgonzola and whose deep creaminess, Diablo and clear, distinct flavors pay the perfect complement to this Swiss chard.

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A Winemaker's Oregon Nouveau Party

Portland, Oregon's new urban winemakers release their version of France's ultimate party wine with a celebration on the sidewalk. Even though there's still tons of work to be done in the cellar, the Collective takes time to celebrate the harvest with its Nouveau.

When your house is on the same block as a winery, you might need to dodge forklifts when you walk your dog, or navigate around a sorting table when you ride your bike. Such is life in Portland, Oregon's Southeast district, home to the Southeast Wine Collective. An incubator space with seven small producers sharing equipment and know-how, it's part of Portland's growing winemaking scene—with a welcoming tasting bar for locals to sample the wines.

The couple behind Division Winemaking Company, Tom and Kate Monroe, founded the Collective in 2012. After studying with winemakers in Burgundy's Beaujolais region, they knew they wanted to start a winery in Oregon but weren't sold on country living. Today, in a warehouse surrounded by restaurants, shops and Craftsman-style houses, they turn Pinot Noir and Gamay (Beaujolais's signature grape) into outstanding wines.

Finding enough fruit is a challenge. "There was a fair amount of Gamay planted in Oregon in the late 1970s and '80s," says Scott Frank of Bow & Arrow, a former member of the Collective. "But a lot was torn up. We have to be grape detectives to find hidden plots."

Inspired by Beaujolais—where winemakers celebrate the first wines of the vintage, called Beaujolais Nouveau, on the third Thursday in November—the Collective teams up with St. Jack restaurant for an Oregon Nouveau party. Made in five weeks, the wines deliver fruity, juicy pleasure. "Tom and I joke that if we catch anyone sniffing or swirling, we'll knock the glass out of their hands," says Frank.

Joel Gunderson, St. Jack's sommelier and general manager, came up with the idea for the party, which takes place on the street. St. Jack's chef ladles out bacony, Gamay-infused beef bourguignon and the pastry chef turns île flottante into a sliceable meringue—much easier to handle while dodging forklifts.

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A Fashionably Late Dinner Party with Erin Fetherston

As he gets gets ready to launch his New York City supper club, The Butterfly, chef Michael White joins forces with his upstairs neighbor, fashion designer Erin Fetherston, for a dinner party featuring updated comfort-food dishes and classic cocktails.

Chef Michael White is an XXL, former high school offensive left tackle from Beloit, Wisconsin. Erin Fetherston is a California-born, Paris-trained fashion designer who wears a size zero and occasionally models the lacy, feminine dresses in her eponymous line. But they have a few things in common, starting with a New York City address. That’s because White’s latest restaurant, The Butterfly, is directly below Fetherston’s design studio. And when The Butterfly opens this spring, the female staffers will wear Fetherston’s elegant black aprons with sky-blue ruffles.

White understands how food and fashion can intersect. At his flagship restaurant, the luxurious Italian seafood spot Marea, he feeds fashion-industry powerhouses like model Heidi Klum and designer Jason Wu. The good-natured chef debunks the cliché that fashion people don’t eat. “Carine Roitfeld,” says White, naming the former Vogue Paris editor in chief who launched CR Fashion Book. “Her favorite thing in the world is the sea urchin and lardo toast at Marea.” Fetherston also likes food. She and her boyfriend, Gabe Saporta—the front man for the band Cobra Starship—frequently cook together. “I put him on omelet duty,” says Fetherston. “That’s the test of a great chef, right? He makes a mean omelet. So he passed my chef test.”

Recently, Fetherston and White decided to throw a party together to celebrate the upcoming opening of The Butterfly, and to preview its Midwestern-inspired menu. Because neither Fetherston nor Saporta eat meat, White focused on vegetable dishes. One of these is his terrific version of artichoke dip, baked with panko bread crumbs and Parmigiano-Reggiano and topped with crispy shallots. For another dip, White pureed sun-dried tomatoes with olives and capers, a recipe inspired by his mother. At The Butterfly, White will serve potpies with seasonal fillings; for Fetherston’s dinner party, the chef opted for mushrooms and butternut squash, with a topping of tender Parker House dough like his great-grandmother made.

While White cooked, Fetherston readied her apartment for guests like Andrew Bevan, an editor at Teen Vogue, and Tom Palmer, who produces her fashion shows. “A fashion show is similar to a dinner party,” she says. “You have to have a concept, you have to understand timing and you have to think about all the details.” When Fetherston plans dinners, the first thing she thinks about is the flowers. “Boy, am I lucky with flowers,” she says. Her hero is Jeff Leatham, the man behind the incredible floral displays at the Four Seasons Hotel George V in Paris. “He taught me to be brave with them and not treat them like they’re too precious. I’m always in a good mood when I’m playing with flowers.”

In the kitchen, Fetherston usually tries to make food healthier—she’s been experimenting with coconut oil, inventing a recipe for silver-dollar-size coconut pancakes. But she approved of the dessert that White and his pastry chef, Bob Truitt, devised for her dinner: over-the-top blondie sundaes with a super-rich caramel sauce and candied nuts. The sundaes are the antithesis of healthy, but Fetherston loved them. And the colors even matched her dress.

The Butterfly Supper Club and Cocktail Bar, 225 W. Broadway, New York City; altamareagroup.com.

Drinks will be big at The Butterfly, promises Michael White. Overseeing the bar is mixologist Eben Freeman (left, teaching White how to make a Brandy Old-Fashioned). “I want to bring back the drinks from my parents’ era, but really well done,” Freeman says. “We’ll serve a Tom Collins, but with kaffir lime.” He plays with the classic Old-Fashioned, making a syrup with maraschino cherries—at The Butterfly he uses all-natural ones—and adding club soda as an unconventional finish.

Recipe: Brandy Old-Fashioneds

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A Fashionably Late Dinner Party with Erin Fetherston

As he gets gets ready to launch his New York City supper club, The Butterfly, chef Michael White joins forces with his upstairs neighbor, fashion designer Erin Fetherston, for a dinner party featuring updated comfort-food dishes and classic cocktails.

Chef Michael White is an XXL, former high school offensive left tackle from Beloit, Wisconsin. Erin Fetherston is a California-born, Paris-trained fashion designer who wears a size zero and occasionally models the lacy, feminine dresses in her eponymous line. But they have a few things in common, starting with a New York City address. That’s because White’s latest restaurant, The Butterfly, is directly below Fetherston’s design studio. And when The Butterfly opens this spring, the female staffers will wear Fetherston’s elegant black aprons with sky-blue ruffles.

White understands how food and fashion can intersect. At his flagship restaurant, the luxurious Italian seafood spot Marea, he feeds fashion-industry powerhouses like model Heidi Klum and designer Jason Wu. The good-natured chef debunks the cliché that fashion people don’t eat. “Carine Roitfeld,” says White, naming the former Vogue Paris editor in chief who launched CR Fashion Book. “Her favorite thing in the world is the sea urchin and lardo toast at Marea.” Fetherston also likes food. She and her boyfriend, Gabe Saporta—the front man for the band Cobra Starship—frequently cook together. “I put him on omelet duty,” says Fetherston. “That’s the test of a great chef, right? He makes a mean omelet. So he passed my chef test.”

Recently, Fetherston and White decided to throw a party together to celebrate the upcoming opening of The Butterfly, and to preview its Midwestern-inspired menu. Because neither Fetherston nor Saporta eat meat, White focused on vegetable dishes. One of these is his terrific version of artichoke dip, baked with panko bread crumbs and Parmigiano-Reggiano and topped with crispy shallots. For another dip, White pureed sun-dried tomatoes with olives and capers, a recipe inspired by his mother. At The Butterfly, White will serve potpies with seasonal fillings; for Fetherston’s dinner party, the chef opted for mushrooms and butternut squash, with a topping of tender Parker House dough like his great-grandmother made.

While White cooked, Fetherston readied her apartment for guests like Andrew Bevan, an editor at Teen Vogue, and Tom Palmer, who produces her fashion shows. “A fashion show is similar to a dinner party,” she says. “You have to have a concept, you have to understand timing and you have to think about all the details.” When Fetherston plans dinners, the first thing she thinks about is the flowers. “Boy, am I lucky with flowers,” she says. Her hero is Jeff Leatham, the man behind the incredible floral displays at the Four Seasons Hotel George V in Paris. “He taught me to be brave with them and not treat them like they’re too precious. I’m always in a good mood when I’m playing with flowers.”

In the kitchen, Fetherston usually tries to make food healthier—she’s been experimenting with coconut oil, inventing a recipe for silver-dollar-size coconut pancakes. But she approved of the dessert that White and his pastry chef, Bob Truitt, devised for her dinner: over-the-top blondie sundaes with a super-rich caramel sauce and candied nuts. The sundaes are the antithesis of healthy, but Fetherston loved them. And the colors even matched her dress.

The Butterfly Supper Club and Cocktail Bar, 225 W. Broadway, New York City; altamareagroup.com.

Drinks will be big at The Butterfly, promises Michael White. Overseeing the bar is mixologist Eben Freeman (left, teaching White how to make a Brandy Old-Fashioned). “I want to bring back the drinks from my parents’ era, but really well done,” Freeman says. “We’ll serve a Tom Collins, but with kaffir lime.” He plays with the classic Old-Fashioned, making a syrup with maraschino cherries—at The Butterfly he uses all-natural ones—and adding club soda as an unconventional finish.

Recipe: Brandy Old-Fashioneds

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A Tamale-Making Harvest Party

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Swim-Up Dinner Party

Founded by two Chez Panisse cooks, The Market in Massachusetts is an ambitious fish shack steps from the Atlantic. Here, its founders throw a party for their crew. The Market Restaurant crew heads to the Annisquam River for their summer staff party.

The dog days of August run long, hot and hazy on the banks of the Annisquam River in Massachusetts, especially for people who spend those days working behind a stove. The only antidote: a dip in the water. A ragtag restaurant crew drinks chilled rosé and takes turns doing goofy dives off the dock, to giddy applause. Back on the deck, dinner awaits: a giant pot of smoky fish chowder, heirloom tomatoes in a warm anchovy dressing, thick pork chops piled with pickled peaches, slices of buttermilk cake filled with plump blackberries. This is a summer staff party at The Market Restaurant on Lobster Cove in the town of Gloucester.

Opened in 2010 by chef couple Nico Monday and Amelia O’Reilly, The Market is in the Annisquam neighborhood, one of those coastal destinations that make GPS devices go haywire. A faded sign on the old building, once an actual market, still says, “The Market.” But instead of live bait or lobsters in tanks, there’s a daily-changing menu written on a chalkboard behind the bar: oysters with mignonette, lobster-corn fritters, a Provençal tomato-and-Gruyère casserole called a panade. Most of the incredibly fresh ingredients were grown, fished or made within a few miles. All of it smacks of the legendary Chez Panisse in Berkeley, and for good reason: Monday and O’Reilly are Chez Panisse alums, and Monday is the godson of the restaurant’s Alice Waters.

Monday’s parents met at Chez Panisse when they were both servers, and he grew up stealing pizza out of the wood-fired oven. As an adult, he naturally turned to cooking, working his way through kitchens in Provence and Italy and even doing a stint at Dario Cecchini’s famed Chianti butcher shop. He returned for a job as a line cook at Chez Panisse, which is where he met O’Reilly, a culinary-school grad who was working the unglamorous garde-manger shift, tasked with doing a lot of the ordering. “You get to see the workings of the restaurant that customers don’t get to see,” she says. “You know the purveyors, the people you get your polenta from, the farmers. Everyone.”

After about four years together at Chez Panisse, the couple started looking for their own project. When work visas to Spain fell through, they came across The Market in O’Reilly’s hometown. Previously a greasy spoon, it had been empty for a year when the two decided to take it over, hiring their friends to help.

The wayward mix of cooks, waitstaff and bartenders is put through the wringer during the 20-week season. The tiny kitchen crew does everything by hand, including pickling, canning and butchering. Still, the feeling is “like summer camp,” says Monday. Many staffers live in cottages across the cove; to get to work, they either swim or walk over a creaky wooden bridge. And after the restaurant closes, they sometimes swim out to a barge owned by a local fisherman to hang out together in its wood-fired sauna.

Today, some of Boston’s best chefs make the one-hour drive up to eat at The Market. Craigie on Main’s Tony Maws, Hungry Mother’s Barry Maiden and Frank McClelland of L’Espalier, who also runs Apple Street Farm a few towns away in Essex, have all visited. “You’re sitting on the harbor, the sun’s setting—everything just tastes better,” says Maws. “It’s almost not fair.”

As night falls, laughter pours out of the sauna, along with buckets of steam, every time another Market staffer enters. Other members of the crew open Caraquet oysters on the dock, tossing shells into the water. O’Reilly takes it all in. “Sometimes I think, Wait, this is our life? All our best friends are at the restaurant with us, everyone arrives on time, wearing what they’re supposed to wear—it’s working,” she says.

Erin Byers Murray is a Boston-based food writer and the author of Shucked.

After sunset, The Market Restaurant crew hangs out on the dock with dessert.

“Everybody likes eggs, and sometimes my staff and I like to have breakfast for a late dinner. This is a recipe we had on the menu for Bastille Day, and it was very popular with the staff, so sometimes we pull it out for a family meal. We allow about three eggs per person, whisking them gently until smooth. We add one tablespoon of cold cubed butter and a splash of water. This allows for a thin, crêpe-like omelet, which is that beautiful French classic we’re going for. Next, you’ll need something savory and delicious to put in the omelet, like herbs and Camembert or any other full-flavored ripe cheese with a similar consistency. It’s easiest to make this style of omelet with a thin, well-seasoned steel skillet, but cast-iron, nonstick or even a crêpe pan will work. Melt a little butter in the pan over medium heat, then pour in one portion of the omelet mixture, shaking the pan gently to even out the depth. Sprinkle on some chopped herbs like parsley, chives and chervil. Lay three or four slices of cheese in a line down the center of the omelet. When the bottom of the omelet is set but the top is still runny, gently slide a rubber spatula under one side and fold over the middle; do the same on the other side. Cook for another 30 seconds or so, until the cheese is barely melted and the eggs are still soft. Slide onto a plate and eat with a garden salad.”—Amelia O’Reilly

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Hollywood Canning Party: Preservation Instinct

Actor Bill Pullman, who’s appearing in the new documentary The Fruit Hunters, has turned his obsession with exotic fruit trees into a second career (almost). Here, he hosts a preserving party at his lush and lovely Hollywood orchard. Chefs Minh Phan and Ernest Miller share canning recipes with Bill Pullman and friends.

Here’s something about agriculture that gets into your reptile brain,” says the actor Bill Pullman. It first entered his in 1985 when, on a visit to Los Angeles, he encountered a tree heavy with oranges in the middle of someone’s tidy front yard. He couldn’t resist plucking one. “It was warm from the sun,” he recalls. “The sugar content was amazing.” But as he stood there, on the verge of another bite, he heard a window whoosh open, and an angry voice shooed him off the lawn. Ever since that epiphany—that “zing,” as he puts it—Pullman has been obsessed with fruit: growing it, eating it and sharing it with neighbors. These days, he and his wife, Tamara Hurwitz Pullman, have a home orchard where they love to host what he calls “old-fashioned threshing parties,” with friends and family pitching in to harvest and preserve—and taste—whatever’s in season.

For Pullman, who will headline the new NBC sitcom 1600 Penn this fall, fruit is not just an eccentric diversion. With an acre of mostly exotic trees in his backyard and a thriving nonprofit called Hollywood Orchard (hollywoodorchard.org), which harvests fruit from neighborhood trees for use by local food banks, Pullman’s obsession might constitute a second career.

Before moving to Los Angeles, Pullman had read up on sustainable agriculture and was determined to find a “south-facing solar catchment” someplace on a hillside, where he could construct terraces—an ancient Incan technique for maximizing scarce water resources. Serendipitously, the plot he and Tamara found, in Beachwood Canyon, was already home to a white sapote, three Marsh grapefruit and (zing!) five orange trees. Over the last 20 years, Pullman has been adding to his orchard, acquiring rare berries and stone fruits the way other movie stars collect Italian sports cars. He now maintains more than 40 different species: kumquats and loquats, Persian mulberries and persimmons, jujubes and jaboticabas (a grapelike import from Brazil).

Last year, with a camera crew in tow, he set out to sample exotic fruits he’d never tried before and meet the far-flung farmers who grew them. The result of this odyssey is a film called The Fruit Hunters, by Canadian director Yung Chang, which is due for release this fall. At a mango festival in Miami, Pullman discovered varieties that tasted like piña colada and orange sherbet. In Hawaii he braved the durian, a fruit with a notorious aroma that has been likened to surgical swabs and vomit. (He was aided in the latter endeavor by the fact that he lost his sense of smell in the 1970s—it’s a long story involving Henrik Ibsen, a human pyramid and a fjord.)

Along the way, Pullman picked up valuable farming advice. From an expert on Hawaii’s Big Island, he learned to be “more mercenary about pruning.” Allowing a specimen to keep growing because he liked the foliage was a prodigious misuse of water. “Get over it, Pullman,” the expert admonished.

This waste-not ethos was the inspiration for Pullman’s most recent pickling-and-preserving party, with chefs Ernest Miller of Farmer’s Kitchen and Minh Phan of Beachwood Cafe, whom Pullman calls the “guiding lights” of the Hollywood Orchard project. Miller prepared a fig, orange and pistachio conserve, while Phan made salty-sweet pickled plums to stir into sodas that everyone sipped as they huddled around the old farm table in the front yard, cheerfully pitting and slicing. The Pullmans’ daughter, Maesa, dropped by, along with a couple of neighbors.

Pullman’s involvement in The Fruit Hunters and Hollywood Orchard is partly a way to create a community after decades of reticence about his fruit obsession. “People don’t like hyphenates,” says the farmer-actor, so he rarely discussed agriculture with movie-industry colleagues. And yet, today, backyard farming has become hip. Little did Pullman know he was onto the Next Big Thing. He wouldn’t call himself a trendsetter, but he admits, “I’ve kind of figured something out here.”

Lila Byock is a Los Angeles-based writer who has contributed to The New Yorker and Mother Jones.

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A Chef's Dinner Party Recipes

There’s a new way for restaurant groupies to get up-close-and-personal with the chefs they revere: Kitchit, an online company that connects great pro cooks with fans who want to hire them for parties. Here, San Francisco chef Jeff Banker grills a rooftop feast.

Nowadays, it has become increasingly possible to spend time at home with your favorite chefs—by watching them on TV, for instance, or using their branded cookware. But through a startup called Kitchit.com, restaurant fanatics can now bring actual chefs into their home kitchens. No kidnapping required.

Kitchit’s Ian Ferguson enjoys chef Jeff Banker’s dinner party recipes. Photo © Peden-Munk.

The site gives people with a chef obsession the chance to browse the profiles of seriously seasoned cooks, contact them via the web and book them for events of all kinds—like an elegant dinner party with a pajama dress code, say, or a whole-hog tailgate roast. Currently operating in the Bay Area and Los Angeles, with plans to expand to New York and Chicago this year, Kitchit has a roster of talent that includes boldface names like Traci Des Jardins, plus lesser-known cooks from renowned restaurants. Beyond preparing spectacular meals that would put most caterers to shame, the chefs might also teach cooking classes or lead farmers’-market tours. “When my mother and father came to town, I hired a chef to take us shopping,” says Kitchit co-founder Ian Ferguson. “Back at my apartment, he taught my mom how to butterfly a leg of lamb, then created a menu on the spot. My parents couldn’t stop talking about it.”

Jeff Banker works the grill to create delicious summer dinner party recipes. Photo © Peden-Munk.

The rooftop grilling party on the pages here represents another singular Kitchit experience. The chef is Jeff Banker, who owns San Francisco’s terrific Baker & Banker with his (aptly named) pastry-chef wife, Lori Baker. Their phenomenal menu—an innovative salad with feta, strawberries and almonds; salmon with lemon and dill, grilled on a cedar plank; brown-butter chocolate-chip cookies—would be perfect for your next summer party. At least until your favorite chef is on Kitchit.

Perfect wine pairings for summer dinner party recipes. Photo © Peden-Munk.

Baker & Banker wine director Chris Tang shares his value picks:

Picpoul, a light white wine from southern France’s Languedoc region, is spectacular with all different kinds of seafood.

This citrusy Provençal-style rosé from a small winery in Santa Cruz, California, can pair with just about anything.

When it’s warm out, this versatile, vibrant young red from Italy’s Veneto region is refreshing served slightly chilled.

Delicious grilled dinner party recipes from San Francisco chef Jeff Banker. © Peden+Munk

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Berlin's Best Dinner Party

Stephan Landwehr is the man to know in Berlin if you care about contemporary art. He invites the city’s tastemakers to his house for a preview of his latest venture: a restaurant reinterpreting German classics.

Stephan Landwehr welcomes friends to his art-filled home for a dinner party featuring updated German recipes. Photo © Lisa Linder.

For someone who is not an artist, Stephan Landwehr’s life is very much shaped by art. As Berlin’s premier framer, he is a major player in the city’s art scene. A shrewd collector and occasional curator, Landwehr co-owns the five-year-old Grill Royal, which he funded in part by selling a museum-worthy painting by Scottish artist Peter Doig for $2 million. The ambitious steak house has become a culinary hangout for key figures in the German art world, and a food critics’ favorite as well.

Landwehr is also known around Berlin for entertaining on a more personal scale. The dinner parties he hosts with his business partner Boris Radczun—a dapper former nightlife impresario and passionate home cook—are legendary for the amazing assembly of people (there have been as many as 400 guests) in his quirky, art-filled home. But lately, the success of the Grill Royal has kept Landwehr and Radczun too busy to organize many gatherings.

Today, though, they’re having a dinner party to celebrate something new. The two of them, along with a third partner, Jessica Paul, have just launched Pauly Saal & Bar. Pauly Saal encompasses a modern German restaurant and a private dining room; a deli called Mogg & Melzer is located next door. The sprawling space takes up the entire ground floor and courtyard of the former Jewish Girls School, a 1928 brick structure that’s in the heart of Berlin’s fashionable Mitte district. The building has stood virtually empty for more than 15 years.

Siegfried Danler creates a menu of updated German recipes. Photo © Lisa Linder.

For this enormous enterprise, the restaurateurs enlisted Michelin-starred, Austrian-born chef Siegfried Danler to help revive the tradition of an archetypal Berlin grand café from the 1920s. Danler has created a menu focusing on lighter, more organic versions of classic German dishes, some of which are being served at the party. For an update on chicken with dandelion greens, for instance, the chef uses roast guinea hens with tender braised endives. He serves the succulent birds with a few satisfying accompaniments: boiled, buttered fingerling potatoes and thick, meaty slices of king oyster mushroom slow-cooked in chicken stock.

Landwehr and Radczun are both passionate about Germany’s culinary history; they can discuss it for hours and hours. For generations, they say, the shame of the Second World War separated the nation from its food traditions. “Back when the wall between East and West Germany fell in 1989, there were a lot of us in West Berlin who wished it would have stayed up,” Landwehr says. “That’s because, for many years, we were able to think of ourselves as Berliners rather than as Germans.”

Still, about a decade after the wall came down, West Berliners started to explore the beaches and massive stretches of forest of the former East Germany. They slowly began embracing the ingredients found there, many of which appear on the menu at Pauly Saal. “We’ve got it all—fish from the lakes and from the Baltic Sea, meat and vegetables from Brandenburg,” Radczun says. “We might have to go a little further south for the red wine, but the Spätburgunder coming from Fritz Keller in the Black Forest is as good as any Bordeaux.”

The party to celebrate their hard work on Pauly Saal is the first one the hosts have thrown in a while. This time, Radczun, who usually prepares the food for dinner parties, isn’t cooking himself; instead Danler is previewing a test menu from the restaurant for an eclectic mix of friends, including up-and-coming artists, favorite farmers and other influential Berliners.

Stephan Landwehr hosts a dinner party featuring reinvented German recipes. Photo © Lisa Linder.

An invitation to Landwehr’s home is a coveted event for several reasons. The house, in a building that was a laundry for almost a century, is full of amazing art. Even the L-shaped kitchen could double as an art installation: Landwehr framed panes of colored glass to use as cupboard fronts and lined the walls with drawings and photographs by notable artists such as Marc Brandenburg and Angus Fairhurst. The focal point of the living area is a stuffed, bandaged fox on a pedestal, wearing a jaunty green hat and carrying a walking stick. It’s one of the few sculptures created by German artist Daniel Richter. “I think he made about six of these foxes,” Landwehr says. “He’s giving me the last one he has, so I’ll have two to use to decorate Pauly Saal.”

In the living area, where an abstract portrait of Landwehr by the German painter and sculptor Thomas Scheibitz hangs with three other enormous canvases over the couch, guests drink glasses of deep red Spätburgunder and snack on appetizers of mini open-face pastrami sandwiches on toasted rye, spread with mustard. Instead of tart dill pickles, the traditional accompaniment to pastrami, Danler offers colorful toppings that are each a little bit tangy, including shredded green cabbage with sour-cream dressing, quickly pickled red cabbage and yellow lentils stewed with white wine vinegar and laced with minced scallions.

Dinner party guests enjoy Siegfried Danler’s menu of German recipes. Photo © Lisa Linder.

Gradually, the guests begin to arrange themselves around a wooden dining table underneath a monumental painting by Sean Landers of a clown walking through an arctic landscape. The first course is a mix of vegetables: sautéed local morels with fresh green asparagus and a bright butter-lettuce salad. Nils Odefay, a farmer who raises what he calls “happy chickens,” sits near Michael Zehden, a Berlin hotelier and the owner of a high-end kosher catering company that has fed everyone from the Pope to German chancellor Angela Merkel.

After the guinea hen main course, Danler serves sweet poppy seed–stuffed quark (fresh cheese) dumplings with cooked rhubarb. Zehden’s catering chef, Roman Albrecht, makes a second dessert: semolina dumplings served with tart apricot preserves. Although he’s not Jewish, Albrecht is well known for his kosher cooking at Liebermanns Restaurant in the Jewish Museum Berlin. In Pauly Saal’s private dining room, he’ll serve kosher meals on Friday evenings, as well as for Sunday brunch.

For Pauly Saal’s owners, it’s entirely fitting to offer traditional German and kosher meals under one roof in the former Jewish Girls School. “We’re calling it The Kosher Classroom,” Zehden says. “We hope to attract everyone, from local Berliners curious to learn more about kosher food to groups of Orthodox Jewish travelers.”

“Mazel tov!” says someone at the table. “Guten appetit!” Landwehr adds, as the guests pick up their forks.

Gisela Williams is the European correspondent for Food & Wine. She lives with her family in Berlin.

Stephan Landwehr (center), Boris Radczun and Jessica Paul offer lighter versions of classic German recipes at their new restaurant, Pauly Saal. Photo © Lisa Linder.

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A 2,000-Degree Dinner Party with the Artisans at Esque

Glassblowing meets grass-fed beef when the artisans at Portland, Oregon’s Esque host a dinner party at their studio, inviting star chef Naomi Pomeroy to cook in their superhot ovens.

At Esque Studio in Portland, Oregon, things happen quickly. In less than five minutes, a glassblower can transform a small molten blob at the end of a long tube into a drinking glass; in about half an hour, the glassblower can create a foot-long vase. And in the studio’s 2,000-degree oven, a roast beef for eight people—the main course for an amazing dinner party—will cook in only about three minutes.

Chef Naomi Pomeroy uses Esque studio’s glass oven to roast minty snap peas. Photo © Fredrika Stjärne.

Andi Kovel and Justin Parker, cofounders of Esque, are part of both fast-moving experiences. The pair launched Esque a dozen years ago after meeting at Parsons design school in New York City. They soon became known as glass artists, creating beautiful but functional items in saturated colors like fuchsia and mint green. For the spring 2012 season (like fashion designers, Kovel and Parker create two lines a year), Esque features items like oil and vinegar cruets that resemble elegantly mutated test tubes and paperweights that look like bubblegum bubbles.

Esque’s studio, in an industrial part of the city, is very much a working space; still, Kovel and Parker sometimes host dinners there. Parker, an avid cook, learned this style of entertaining from his former teacher, Italian glassblowing master Pino Signoretto, who would have elaborate Italian meals in his studio after a day of work. Parker’s specialty is tacos: He brings carnitas or roasted root vegetables from home, then very briefly heats flour tortillas in the glass oven. But sometimes the studio meals are more ambitious. Periodically, Kovel and Parker open the huge garage-style door, spread white tablecloths on one of their long worktables and invite a great local chef, like Naomi Pomeroy, to come cook.

The Esque team designed sky-blue bowls for the meal. Photo © Fredrika Stjärne.

Pomeroy, an F&W Best New Chef 2009, first met the Esque team in 2002, when they made glassware and art for her now-defunct restaurant Ripe. For a recent dinner to celebrate the expansion of her current restaurant, Beast, Kovel and Parker created serving dishes specifically for her food. When Pomeroy decided to serve curried spring carrot soup with tarragon oil, Parker designed sky-blue soup bowls that look like pools of liquid glass—a version of Esque’s clear Lump bowls.

Parker and Kovel are usually blowing glass when guests arrive, and this party is no exception. “It’s a little performance-arty, but we’re usually about 10 pieces behind schedule,” says Parker, who gives guests a quick glassblowing lesson. (His girlfriend, Kim McCleod, who works at the boutique Oregon winery Anne Amie Vineyards, comes for the meal but passes on the class.) Then Pomeroy begins cooking vegetables in the intense heat of the oven, blasting snap peas before tossing them simply with lemon oil and shredded mint. “In the glass oven, the snap peas cook so fast, but they stay bright and crispy on the inside,” she says. “It’s like you’re walking in your garden picking peas, but they’re caramelized peas.”

Esque’s Justin Parker and Andi Kovel collaborate to make glassware. Photo © Fredrika Stjärne.

For the main course, Pomeroy sears eye of round beef in the oven in minutes, taking it out of the intense heat every 20 seconds or so to be sure it stays rosy pink inside, then serving it with a conserve of oven-roasted tomatoes and balsamic vinegar. “I love cooking like this,” says Pomeroy. “People are standing around while you’re taking things from the oven that are incendiary. And the drama: You pull out a piece of meat, and it’s smoking, and it’s crazy. But then you see that it’s just steam. And when the steam clears, you see this beautiful piece of meat. It’s like knife-throwing dinner theater.”

To make sure that ingredients cook evenly and don’t stick, preheat pans or skillets before adding the vegetables or meat. (And make sure they’re ovenproof.)

Rub meat or toss vegetables with a little oil before putting them in a very hot oven. “You don’t want them to brown too quickly,” says Naomi Pomeroy.

Any meat that benefits from quick cooking does well in a very hot oven (many steak houses cook beef at 1,000 degrees and above). A little bit of sugar helps beef brown.

Sturdy green vegetables, like asparagus and snap peas, caramelize in a very hot oven, becoming sweet and brown on the outside while staying fresh and crisp within.

Sweet Cauliflower-and-Carrot Pickles

« Curried Carrot Soup with Tarragon Oil

Roasted Beets with Pistachios, Herbs and Orange

Roast Beef with Oven-Roasted Tomato Salsa

Blistered Snap Peas with Mint

Prune Upside-Down Cakes

Tips from former Food & Wine Best New Chefs

The artisans behind Esque host a high-heat dinner party with star chef Naomi Pomeroy. Photo © Fredrika Stjärne.

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A Fabulous Cal-Japanese Dinner Party

Chef Sylvan Mishima Brackett of Peko Peko Catering treats California as if it were a province of Japan, serving hyperseasonal dishes on exquisite ceramics.

Any good caterer knows that garnishes should be fresh. But it would be a reckless understatement to call Sylvan Mishima Brackett “good.” For a casual dinner with friends, the owner of Oakland, California-based Japanese catering company Peko Peko makes a 40-minute detour to a friend’s backyard in Berkeley. In the fading light, he clambers over hillocks of wild watercress, his bee-striped sneakers growing damp as he crouches down to hunt for the tenderest shoots. He snaps off 10 or 12 of them, stem by stem.

Back in the test kitchen at his house, Brackett prepares the soup course. In the drafty converted garage where he tests new dishes, he plans to make silken tofu bathed in dashi stock and garnished with crabmeat. Serious Japanese cooks shave their own dried tuna for dashi, so he hammers the blade of his Japanese carpenter’s plane into place and unpacks the katsuobushi (dried, fermented and smoked skipjack tuna) that he bought in Japan. (Born in Kyoto and raised in California, Brackett returns to Japan at least once a year to eat and to stock his pantry.)

Sylvan Mishima Bracket of Peko Peko Catering forms crab and pork dumplings. Photo © Fredrika Stjärne.

Kirk Lombard, a fisherman friend, knocks on the door bearing Dungeness crab fresh from the Bay. In the warm glow of the two bulbs hanging from the raftered ceiling, Brackett hands his visitor a glass of tart-sweet plum wine, brewed from fruit harvested from another friend’s backyard. He pulls the crabs out of the bucket, their claws snapping furiously. His test kitchen has no stove, but the next afternoon, Brackett will fire up one of his three 50,000-plus BTU portable wok burners to steam the seafood.

Despite all the attention to detail, Brackett himself is wonderfully mellow. With Peko Peko, he aims to capture the low-key atmosphere of Japan’s most informal dining venues, the drinking pubs called izakayas. “Izakayas really took off in the 1950s and ’60s, when the new class of salarymen would go out to eat,” he explains. “The best ones were located under the train tracks, little stalls selling simple things.” He loved the scene, he says. “I wanted to re-create some of that feeling in California.”

Peko Peko Catering menus. Photo © Fredrika Stjärne.

To foster a “throwback-y” atmosphere, he Photoshops images from Japanese matchbooks from the 1920s and ’40s to use for his menus. (He taught himself graphic design as Alice Waters’s longtime personal assistant, and later the creative director of Chez Panisse.) Unusual for a catering operation, he has also commissioned his own hand-thrown Japanese plates, many from one of his cooks, Yuko Sato, who studied ceramics in Tokyo and has an online shop, Nama Ya (nama-ya.com). Just in the last year, his client list has grown to include tech companies, which order his beautiful bento-box meals by the hundreds, and the more experimental-minded Scribe Winery, which, for a recent party, invited him to run a secret udon restaurant inside a closet. He has also begun looking at spaces to open a restaurant.

Peko Peko Catering’s Sylvan Mishima Brackett steams rice over a wood fire. Photo © Fredrika Stjärne.

Brackett’s wife, Jenny Wapner, a cookbook editor, has spoken to him about moderation. But she doesn’t mind that his test kitchen has taken over their yard: Brackett prefers foods cooked over wood fires. At the dinner party the next night, as their friends arrive, he grills exquisite chicken-and-yuzu meatballs on the yakitori grill he’s improvised on the mantle of their outdoor fireplace. When a log explodes, issuing a loud pop, Wapner doesn’t blink but sends Brackett to check the wood-fired Japanese rice cooker. It’s blazing at full strength to steam rice stirred with tangy pickled cherry blossoms—flowers harvested from yet another friend’s backyard.

“There’s this tension,” Brackett admits as he stirs the fire to settle the coals. “Once people call you a chef, you feel compelled to justify it. My food is getting fancier.” He pulls down one of Sato’s matte, iron-hued platters, on which he’ll serve a cloud-like omelet laced with mirin and soy sauce. As he fusses with another garnish of pickled ginger, he laughs. “I need to go back to meat on sticks.”

Emily Kaiser Thelin is a writer and former F&W editor living in Berkeley, California.

Peko Peko Catering’s Sylvan Mishima Brackett creates new dishes in the converted garage he calls his test kitchen. Photo © Fredrika Stjärne.

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3 Gourmet Recipes You Can Prepare for Your Party

No matter what kind of party you're throwing - holiday event, bridal or baby shower - you can wow your guests with your culinary skills. You don't have to be a graduate of the C.I.A. to make these recipes. All you need is quality ingredients, a little planning ahead, and patience to present a gorgeous plate of food. Here are two delicious entrees and a dessert that will make your party or meal complete.

Paella

One fourth cup olive oil, plus 2 tablespoons

One half cup chorizo sliced into half-inch pieces

Half a large onion, diced

4 cloves of garlic, minced

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into chunks

One and a half cups Valencia rice

2 cups chicken broth

One half cup red wine

One half pound mussels

Salt to taste

Bijol powder (found in spice section)

One half pound medium raw shrimp, peeled and de-veined

One half pound clams (littlenecks or cherrystones)

One fourth pound scallops

Meat of 2 lobster tails, reserve shells for garnish

Half cup frozen green peas

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Heat olive oil in a large pan. Sauté chorizo sausage. onions, and garlic and sauté until wilted but not overcooked. Add chicken pieces and sauté for about 15 minutes until brown, but not fully cooked. Remove and set aside.

In a large pot combine the rice, broth, wine, and mussels. Add salt for flavor and Bijol for color. Stir. Turn on high and bring to boil and cover. Add chicken and chorizo. Cover and simmer on the stove for 30 minutes, until the rice is cooked. Sauté shrimp, clams, scallops, and lobster tails separately in the oil. Remove and keep warm. Fold seafood into the rice mixture. Transfer to a large, flat oven-safe platter to serve. Top with peas. Place in oven for about 5 minutes to heat through. Garnish with lobster shells.

Coq au Vin

1 bottle of red wine (not too sweet, not too dry - a Beaujolais or Pinot Noir works best)

1 cup chicken stock

6-8 boneless chicken thighs

1 cup frozen pearl onions

Half stick of butter

1 lb. fresh mushrooms (cremini, oyster, shitake variety)

6 strips of bacon, chopped

2 tbsp. vegetable oil

2 tbsp. flour or cornstarch

Salt and pepper to taste

Several sprigs of fresh thyme

One medium spaghetti squash

In a large Dutch oven pot, melt 2 tablespoons of butter and cook frozen pearl onions and mushrooms until they're tender. Set aside. In the same pot, add chopped bacon pieces and cook down until all fat is rendered and the bacon is crisp, but not burned. Strain bacon out onto paper towel to drain.

Using remaining bacon fat, brown the chicken thighs for about ten minutes on both sides until golden brown on the outside. Salt and pepper as it's cooking. Add chicken stock, red wine, and thyme and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer, cover and let it cook for 30-45 minutes or until chicken is extremely tender.

In a preheated 425 degree oven, place halved and seeded spaghetti squash skin side up on a baking sheet and roast for 20-30 minutes. Remove and let it cool. Then, with a fork, rake out the squash into a bowl. It will resemble thick spaghetti.

Remove one cup of cooking liquid to separate bowl. Combine flour and two tablespoons of butter together and then whisk into the cooking liquid to form a thick sauce. Pour back into larger pot and stir well to thicken the rest of the sauce. Let it simmer an additional 10-15 minutes. Then add the onions and mushrooms back in and finally the bacon. Serve mixture over a bed of the spaghetti squash.

Nova Scotia Blueberry Buckl

One fourth cup butter

Half cup sugar

1 egg

1 cup flour

Half tsp. baking powder

One third cup milk

2 cups fresh or frozen (thawed) blueberries

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream together sugar and butter and then add egg and mix well. Sift flour, baking powder and salt and then add alternatively with milk and the first mixture. Then, add everything together and stir. Pour into a well-greased square pan. Spread blueberries evenly over the top.

In an a separate bowl, add half a cup sugar, one third cup flour, one half teaspoon cinnamon, and one fourth cup butter. Cut all ingredients together with a fork and then scatter the topping over the blueberries. Bake for 45 minutes to an hour. Serve with gourmet vanilla bean ice cream.

Criss White is a professional writer that writes about food and other party planning topics like baby shower recipes and other baby shower ideas. Criss enjoys hosting parties and cooking when not writing.

Note: You can reprint this article in your ezine, blog, or website as long as the credits remain intact and hyperlinks remain active and do follow.

Raw Food Christmas Party

So, you've had enough of the conventional unhealthy food you've been eating on Christmas Day or Thanksgiving Day year in, year out? You want to be able to celebrate in style but you desire a different approach in the food department - a healthier approach.

You've decided to have a Raw Food Christmas party for a change but are not quite sure what you can make? Perhaps you are a raw foodist or just like the idea of eating fresh and healthy food for a change. You want to abandon the overcooked stodgy food that makes you feel tired and lethargic afterwards and reaching for the alcohol to digest it (well, acid is a corrosive force!)

The thing about raw food today is that it doesn't have to just be lettuce and fruit. Of course, that is very healthy but in temperate climates your body will eventually demand something more satisfying and filling. The answer is 'raw gourmet food'. There are numerous raw chefs and even novices out there creating a style of prepared raw food that is inventive, classy and delicious. Why not give it a try? All you need are a few basic ingredients: - fruit, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and seasonings. You can elaborate later with raw cacao, coconut butter, raw sweeteners etc.

A raw fruit pie can be made by grinding 1 cup of whole nuts in a nut grinder or coffee grinder and then mixing with ½ cup soft dates. Press the mixture into a lined pie dish. For the filling, blend 2 bananas with ½ cup blueberries and ½ cup cashew nuts. Add 2 tablespoons of coconut oil and blend until smooth. Pour the cream into your crust. Set in the fridge for up to an hour. You can also decorate the pie with fresh fruits. This is a very basic recipe but you would do well to get a raw food recipe book to master the art of creative gourmet raw food. You might also consider attending a raw food class where you will learn all the basics in raw cuisine. It's really quite simple once you become familiar with the ingredients. You can even make your own raw chocolate!

As an experienced plant food eater, what will I be making for my Raw Food Christmas Party this year?

*Apple Spice Punch

*Cream of Parsnip Soup with Petit Pain

*Pecan Nutloaf with Garlic Mushrooms and Pine Nut Sauce

*Honey Walnuts

*Chocolate Torte with Cream

*Festive Mince Pies with (B)randy Sauce

Over the New Year, I will make Mushroom Tarts, Crispy Kale, Cheesy Flax Crackers with Seed Cheese, Scottish Shortbread and Chocolates.

Is your mouth watering yet? You too could also create your very own raw festive feast for you and your family this year. Why not make Christmas and Thanksgiving a healthier celebration for everyone involved and include some tantalizing life-giving raw food on the menu? Once you've tried raw gourmet food, you will see how easy it is to eat healthily and still enjoy your food. So go on, try some raw food today. You and your loved ones deserve to be healthy. Have a happy and healthy festive time!

Anabrese Neuman is a Healthy Living Author. For more information visit http://www.rawlifestyle.co.uk or http://rawchristmasandthanksgivingrecipes.blogspot.com

Have the best dinner party with Gourmet Food on the table

Dinners are wonderful, especially if you're just one of the participants. An Hosting is a nightmare for many, especially for mothers or wives. The tasks are really tiresome and are also subject to the control, if you like it or not. To host a party takes a lot of planning and looking for someone to satisfy is not always the best idea, even more important if you are on a budget crunch. To get rid of these concerns and reduce the work to be done, looking for an online gourmet food provider can give you the answers. This can be a good tool to ensure the quality of food you will serve as well as increase your time on other things.

The next thing you need to worry about is how to give your home a little retouching. Please note that submission and the overall appearance of the House can integrate the type of food they serve. If you plan to serve the best gourmet food then make sure that the environment is suitable for you. No matter how delicious the food is, the mood of those who eat them is also a big factor to consider. The covers of your table, the curtain on your wall, the music that you play and the food that will serve all give the verdict at the end of the day.

Nowadays, you can seek the help of chef that provides its services on a basis of appointment. While searching for the best food and gourmet online, see if you can also ask a good cook make cooking for you. Once again, you will find information about this type of service via the Internet. The important thing to remember is to exhaust all possibilities, so you can get the party that is difficult to forget.

Stuart is writing for many websites, she enjoys writing on a wide range of topics such as the Line Gourmet Food. You can visit for more details.

Six Gourmet party Food consultant Home tips

So how to go about earning extra income as a consultant and gourmet food? Here are some tips to get started!

The trick is to be casual about it and simply placing your product at the right place at the right time. Gourmet food products virtually sell! Here are some tips to plan a great feast that will sure increase your direct sales is your global customer base.

1. Register as a helper for all parts in your church and other local community events. Take a sample of foodstuffs which are prepared and you're sure to get lots of attention. Usually, you can take a couple of orders on the spot!

2. volunteer for all the festivities at the school of your children and use the opportunity to showcase a few big items. School staff are always having little parties for each other, and probably you can get a constant trickle of orders. Once you know that you are a consultant, house party might be able to recruit some!

3. offer "meet" parties, using your products. People always ask which catered and did a big sale more got a chance to meet more potential customers. You might be able to make a nice sideline out of combining direct sales and Catering!

4. use some articles for a booth for a school fundraiser or a Church charity event and sell stock "tasters" champion for a dollar. The proceeds can go to charity, and probably will pick up a few new customers! Often you can get enough orders in place to compensate for the cost of items donated, and future orders will be forthcoming.

5. If you know that has been scheduled a party of some sort, offer to bring a bit of food. You can easily wow guests with one or two and gourmet selections, and when they exclaim over them is discreetly can make the sale. If you stock up on some of your most popular articles, you can often send guests home with an impulse buy!

6. There are many different ways that you can combine your direct sales pitch with another party plan. If you can help you throw a baby shower for a friend, you can use your status as a home party consultant to help you two! Simply bring a sampling of the products to be used as a refreshment and announce that it will split all profits from sales made with the mother luck to be as a special gift.

Using these and other techniques of party plan can grow your business on the side as well as providing more opportunities for larger pieces of direct sales for others. You will be able to take some of these people to become home party consultants. All you need to do is be on the lookout at all times to make extra sales and contacts to help you build your home business!

Rayven Perkins is a direct sales representative of 7 years. Http://direct-sales-supplies.com/store-home/tastefully-simple-supplies site offers games, ideas, suggestions and hard to find a consultant provides for all distributors in area of party plan.

Gourmet Food Recipes Online Can Help a Dinner Party

The prospect of having to host a dinner party can be stressful enough to reduce the most hardened veteran to tears. Anyone who's been involved in work behind the scenes would know that cooking the food for the party is just one part of the intensive preparation that needs to be carried out prior to the event. Even so, this doesn't detract from the importance of acquiring gourmet food recipes online.

It's important to keep the décor in mind when throwing a dinner party. Buying a completely new dining and living room set is extravagant, needless and out of the question. It's possible to glam up your home without breaking the budget. Always remember that guests perceive the setting as a reflection of the meal to come. Therefore, one would not expect the best gourmet food in dull and dowdy surroundings. Different slip covers for the furniture and good quality dining utensils are things you can't do without.

Once you've sorted out any décor issues, it's time to plan the menu. Settling on a specific theme makes it a lot easier to put together a meal. Exotic foods like Thai or Filipino or even a medley of well-known Asian dishes are likely to be well-received by guests. Deciding on a particular theme makes it easy for you to look for gourmet food recipes online as recipes can be grouped either based on their main component or the region from which they originate.

You will need to go shopping after deciding on a theme and décor. The shopping can be divided into two trips - one for non-perishables (decorations, cutlery, etc.) and one for perishables (food). Shopping in a methodical manner helps eliminate stress and a shopping list will prevent you from forgetting anything. It also helps you budget too, as the best gourmet food doesn't come cheap. Never shop for food on an empty stomach either as this leaves you open to impulse food buys, loss of focus and potentially blowing your budget.

It's important to send out your invites early so that it doesn't clash with anything else guests might have planned. As the day of the dinner party approaches, the guest list should be finalized and attendances confirmed.

At the end, I'd like to share cool website with more details on topics like gourmet recipes online. Visit for more details.

Spruce Your Dinner Party With Specialty Gourmet Foods

One best way to come together as a family or with your friends is by throwing a party. This is because of the fun and thrills that you are bound to get.

Dinner parties have become so common in the current community thus if you are planning one you need to ensure that it is the bomb and that every person attending the event is fully satisfied. There are many ways in which you can dapper this event, this can include great entertainment, unique setting and theme and so on but one thing that pimps a dinner event is dinner.

You have to ensure that the type of food that you are lining up for your guest is fresh and worth to reckon all through. There are many types of foods that you can offer during this event but non can match the satisfaction of gourmet food mixes. This is because the food is beautifully cooked and packed which is imperative in boosting appetite.

Gourmet foods are with no doubt the desire and love and most people irrespective of social of social status in the society and most of them strive to have a meal of this type. Your dinner party will be one to remember if you ensure that your guests are treated to gourmet food mixes.

One significant thing about this type of food is that there are many other varieties that you get from it as long as you know how to prepare it. In case you have minimal information on preparation of gourmet foods, then it is advisable that you seek the services of a local chef. Ingredients of this food are easily available in the local grocery shops or food shops at affordable prices.

One way to spruce your dinner party is to have Specialty gourmet foods. You can also add some flavor to it with Gourmet Food Mixes.

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