In the Land of Cocktails

Just Ask Lally

Posted by Cocktail Chicks on December 18th, 2008

So, I was hav­ing a party, the first real party at my house since Kat­rina.  So how did I decide what to serve?  I asked Lally, what else?

Hav­ing 35 friends over for din­ner and drinks is no small under­tak­ing.  But it is “de rigeur” to make it look effort­less.  It would be gauche (or so I have been taught) to let your guests think you had gone to any trou­ble at all.  So, it is all about plan­ning.  What will you serve?  What will you serve it in?  What will you serve it with?  The truth is if you just map it out a lit­tle bit it will be a blast.  And, here’s a secret, it’s a sure fire way to get all of those last few lit­tle “honey do’s” done around the house.

Amaz­ing how the paint that had cracked from an old, long resolved, leak above the liv­ing room got fixed two days before the party.  And how the hun­dreds (lit­er­ally) of indus­try mag­a­zines I had in strate­gic spots around the house man­aged to find bet­ter hid­den spots.

“I had Maria bring the sil­ver you need to serve over to your home today,” says my incom­pa­ra­bly thought­ful Aunt Dot­tie.  Now, really, not only did she decide all on her own what I would need, but she had it brought to my home.

“What about flow­ers?” asked Aunt Dottie.

Feel­ing grown up I said, “I thought of that, the vases are in my trunk and I will take them to the florist the day of the party.”

“Oh good.  What about the flow­ers for the pow­der room?”

Dejected, I accepted that I was still a host­ess in train­ing.  “Oh.  I didn’t think of that.”

“Not a prob­lem, I’ll buy them when come,” she offers and brings three orchids that gave my bath­room a splurge of elegance.

Yes, I am America’s most spoiled child, niece, cousin…  And you know what?  I revel in it.  I try not to be so needy of help, but I am just miss­ing the Lally/Aunt Dot­tie hostess/entertaining gene.

Oh well.  I have to say I nailed it with the drinks.  I had a full bar and bar­tenders.  Well, I am one of the Cock­tail Chicks and peo­ple expect seri­ous drinks.  But I had 2 spe­cialty (pre-mixed – and only cer­tain drinks allow this) drinks com­plete with a col­or­ful sign list­ing the ingredients.

The drinks for this party were invented for a friend who loves Mai Tai’s.  She also loves daiquiris, so I sug­gested to Fer­rel (drink inven­tor extra­or­di­naire) that we use both dark and light rum like the orig­i­nal Mai Tai.  She added a bit of Orgeat and even Bit­ters (you know how we love bit­ters).  Well bal­anced, not overly sweet, but with depth and nuance. We pro­claimed it the “Oh Mai.”  Big, big hit!

To counter the rum based drink we also served “The Oops” – a bour­bon based drink we invented pre-election for folks whose can­di­date did not pre­vail.  To heal the elec­tion this is one hel­luva cocktail.

Din­ner was: Andouille cracked corn grits with shrimp in cognac cream, Commander’s salad, gar­lic toast and pecan pie squares.

Other than my mother, who at 83 was one of the last to leave the party, pro­claim­ing that I should not wait ‘til Christ­mas to get a new stereo, it all went off with­out a hitch: danc­ing (even dip­ping) and “eat­ing, drink­ing, and car­ry­ing on.”

It was a blast.  So when you are enter­tain­ing and you don’t know what to do – do what I do – ask Lally.