How-To Holiday

Fav lady, Nicole Cari, hosted a Holiday party for 18 of her closest friends. What makes a Holiday dinner party spectacular? It’s all in the details.

Here are a few tips to take note of according to Nicole..

Think Big? Plan Big. Preparing for a dinner party for 18 takes more than a couple of days. At the beginning of the week I dove into my Bon Appetit Thanksgiving issue, all of my food blogs [Ed note: We got you!] and consulted with foodie friends to settle on my menu so I could start prepping dishes ahead of time.

Delegate or Die: After setting the menu, I decided what to take on and what I wanted to hand off. Assigning a few side dishes and apps to friends kept my role manageable.

Mix High & Low: I took everyone’s advice and made my own turkey stock and chicken broth a couple days in advance to really set the dishes apart, but I took a shortcut with the biscuits, which were secretly purchased at Popeye’s by my brilliant best friend Charlie. Why try to do it all??

Take a Seat: I think for special occasions it’s super fun to assign seats. For the name cards, I wanted to find a stamp that identified an essence of each friend. Some were direct (my Parisian friend got an Eiffel Tower), but others were more personal, like Jacob getting flip-flops (which he wears even in the winter) or 3-year-old Vasco getting a turtle because it was one of his first words.

Plan a Happy Ending: Our night ended in the best way possible – everyone in the hot tub with a bottle full of bub.