A Guide To The Perfect Hostess Gift

You have been invited to a dinner party or a beach house for the weekend and you have to bring something for the hostess. What should we bring? It is never an easy answer. We all have been given and received things we really don’t need or want. There are two gifts with which you can’t go wrong (wine and flowers) and past that there are gifts for the person and the occasion.

Here are a few suggestions that could help:

1. Wine

You can’t go wrong with a nice bottle of wine. Even if the hostess has recently returned from rehab she can always re-gift a good bottle. My favorite gift came from a friend that knows her wine. She wrote a note on the bottle saying that it is one of her husband’s favorites. The bad part is that I am still saving the bottle waiting on the right occasion.

2. Flowers

My daughter has a friend from London. Amy is very proper and always brings flowers tied together with a nice ribbon. Everyone loves flowers and the ribbon cuts the expense.

3. Candy

If you are being invited to an out of town dinner party bringing a box of candy from a good candy store from your home town always works.

4. Cheese Board/Serving Set

You can get a nice cheese board at a gift shop relatively inexpensively that makes a nice gift. We have friend that is the queen of the great hostess gift that once told me the best reaction she has ever received was on a cheese board. For the record, we have at least five.

5. Bees Wax Candles

This falls into the category of “You can always use one”. Candles are a safe gift.

6. Packaging

While packaging is key to all gifts, it is worthy of its own category. A great example comes from my mom. My dad was a college dean. His University bought a college that used to be a catholic college and had a convent on the property. At Christmas dad made my mom buy gifts for the 30 nuns at the convent. She bought them a small nic-nac from Bergdorf Goodman. The packaging made the gift and the nun’s are still praying for my father. Another reason packaging is worthy of its own category is that there are great gift bags and wine bottle sacks that are worthy of re-gifting.

7. Holiday Baskets

Around the holidays there are all kinds of gifts that come into play. Ornaments and candy dishes are just a few examples.

8. Napkins

So you have been invited to a dinner party. It is pretty safe to say that your hostess entertains. She can always use some interesting napkins. Many gift shops even sell napkins with initials on them.

9. Titleist Pro V 1’s

OK golf balls aren’t exactly a hostess gift. But Titleist Pro V 1’s are as good as currency to just about any golfer and they are expensive. The good news is that Titleist and now other manufacturers run promotions every spring where you buy 3 dozen and get a 4th dozen free. The one caveat is that you need to have them personalized so that they can’t be resold with the lower price. I get them personalized with “THANKS” and then give as gifts when I get invited to someone’s club or want to make a dinner party host really happy.

10. Object D’art

A really nice piece of art (some may call them chotskies) makes a great hostess gift. This type of gift is a little risky and can get very expensive. Last year we were in Poland where the local currency is 4 to 1 to the US dollar and we saw some beautiful art that would cost hundreds in the USA, but was under $20. We bought a few pieces, but wish we had bought dozens. The risk falls into the category of “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure”. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder so it helps to know your audience.

Earlier I mentioned my friend who is the queen of the hostess gift. A few years ago she moved to a new town. When she hosted her first dinner party she received a wide array of gifts. She told me that now that her new friends know her they just bring wine.

When you are hosting a dinner party people usually ask “What can we bring?” We always say bring a bottle of wine. You will wind up with a wide array. Chances are you will get a few gems and some may even be inscribed. The rest, you can re gift to your sisters.

Of course, the perfect hostess dinner party gift is a great book. Impromptu Friday Nights – Guide to Supper Clubs published by Morgan James Publishing in January and is available through every main channel that sells books.

If you enjoyed this blog and similar other stories/supper club lessons follow me on Facebook and Twitter and subscribe to get future blogs at www.impromptufridaynights.com/blog and check out my book Impromptu Friday Nights a Guide to Supper Clubs. Published by Morgan James Publishing and available through most channels where books are sold.

Legendary Potato Salad

My mother’s potato salad is legendary (in our family). My mom is German and my father used to say: In WWII, if the Germans had bombed with your mother’s potato salad, they would have won the war! Yes my father was prone to hyperbole (Some would say: like father, like son), but the truth is that mom’s potato salad is fantastic and a great addition to a summer supper club menu.

Like many great family dishes, the recipe is somewhat unique to the author. The truth is that my mom makes this dish a little different every time. She uses the same basic formula, but will taste as she goes along and add something here and there to get it the way she wants it. Sometimes she will add lemon juice, sometimes not. Sometimes she will add a little mustard, sometimes not. It isn’t that she is being secretive, it’s just that flavors vary. She knows what she wants it to taste like and has a few tricks to get the results she wants.

You can ask Mom’s 6 grandkids what is their favorite dish that mom-mom makes at the beach and potato salad is way up on the list. As stated, the potato salad is legendary, but there is also the fact that dish brings them back to the great memories of their youth, growing up at their grandmother’s beach house.

My father claimed that coffee and tea tasted better in a glass cup. The truth is that he remembered having tea at my mother’s mom’s lake house when my mom and dad were first married. Tea and coffee in a glass cup reminded him of the good times and of course, the memories made things taste better.

Mom’s potato salad is more than great memories. It is great. Here is the potato salad recipe. There are some basics that she does that are different and repeatable. For one, she marinates the potatoes first:

Check out the video of the prep and marination.

There are also some tricks in her final dressing of the potato salad

Check out the video on her final dressing

After we made the video, mom continued to taste her potato salad and couldn’t help herself and commented “Boy this is good!”.

Check out the potato salad recipe

We enjoyed the potato salad along with a menu of other salads as part of our Home and Away series of visits with our daughters in-laws. Every summer we visit my mom in Westhampton and Helene and Rick live in Montauk which is the east-end of the Hamptons. We are only 40 miles apart but with summer traffic it can take two hours. No matter what it is always fun with the grandkids, good food and great times.

Check out the video of the pre-meal festivities

Helene & Rick Menu

Appetizers

Roasted Pepper Rolatinis With Salami, Goat Cheese And Pesto
Smoked Salmon Spread Canapés

Salads

Curry Chicken With Apple, Toasted Pine Nuts, Raisins and Fresh Dill
Mom Mom’s Legendary Potato Salad
Caprese With Tomato, Fresh Mozzarella, Pesto and Basil
Grilled Peaches With Creamy Blue Cheese And A Balsamic Glaze
Poached Asparagus With Olive Oil, Red Wine Vinegar, Pepper & Onion

Dessert

Peach Cobbler Tart With Vanilla Ice Cream

The Magic Of An Herb Garden

Nothing adds to the color, flavor and presentation impact of a dish like fresh herbs. It doesn’t matter if you are cooking for two or a dinner party of twenty, make sure you add fresh herbs to your dish.

I always have a supply of herbs on hand. Summertime is great as many herbs are perennials that come back year after year and are plentiful.

Check out the video of an herb garden tour

(Maya garding the garden with fennel, sage and oregano in the background)

We even keep a few herbs growing in the windowsill through the winter. Whenever we entertain, I keep jarfuls of 2 or 3 herbs next to my prep area for use and a mixture of chopped herbs in a container as part of my mise en place.

(herbs on the windowsill)

I do have a confession to make, I haven’t always been a fresh herb fan. As a child I remember begging my mother not to ruin my plate of soup with parsley. My sister tells the story of taking her daughter Emily to a special restaurants and having her insist to the waiter that she didn’t want any green stuff on her food. I am proud to say that even the picky Emily recently sent me a picture of her grilled pizza creation with green stuff – fresh basil. Yeah Emily!

Some of the major herbs consist of:

Basil – There are numerous kinds of basil including spicy and sweet basil. Basil adds a unique flavor and character to many dishes. It’s usually mixed with tomatoes and other vegetables in French food. It also adds zest to pasta dishes and other delicacies.

French Tarragon – This smells like anise. It’s widely used in French seafood dishes. It blends well with the rich taste of fish, shrimp and other seafood, while adding a distinct and memorable flavor that makes the dish even more enticing.

Thyme – Thyme comes in many flavors and is a very versatile herb. It can add zesty flavor to a wide variety of stews, meats, soups, seafood, dressings, sauces and more. It can also be used in marinating meats and seafood so that when you cook them, it brings out the natural flavor of the dish while infusing its own distinct taste.

Sage – Sage has been around since the Roman times and is unique in that it’s one of the few herbs whose flavor gets stronger as it dries further. Its subtle but tasty flavor is great for salad dressings, soups and sauces. It’s best to add sage at the final stage of cooking.

Mint – Fresh mint adds that cool and refreshing flavor to any dish. Even water is made even better if you add some mint leaves.

Chives– Chives are an important herb in the French kitchen and they have the most delicate onion flavor which make it a wonderful seasoning for many dishes.

Fennel – Fennel is a beautiful tall and graceful perennial herb with fine feathery green leaves and bright yellow flowers. It looks very much like dill but the flavor is a sweet anise which is very different.

Parsley – All varieties of parsley are hardy biennials but mostly treated as annuals. Of course no herb garden would be complete without its parsley! The two most popular ones are the curly leaf parsley and the French or the flat leaf parsley which undoubtedly has the better flavor.

Oregano– Oregano is a culinary herb, used for the flavor of its leaves, which can be more flavorful when dried than fresh. Oregano’s most prominent modern use is as the staple herb of Italian-American cuisine. Its popularity in the U.S. began when soldiers returning from World War II brought back with them a taste for the “pizza herb”, which had probably been eaten in southern Italy for centuries.^[13] There, it is most frequently used with roasted, fried, or grilled vegetables, meat, and fish. Oregano combines well with spicy foods popular in southern Italy. It is less commonly used in the north of the country, as marjoram generally is preferred.

No matter what you are making. No matter what you are cooking for. Fresh herbs will make it better!