out and about
ENTERTAINING 2.0 Another holiday season is here—and with it a palpable (and pent-up) desire to gather with family and friends. Time to dust off the cookbooks, stock the larder, and brush up on your hosting skills. It is also an opportune moment, after a protracted hiatus, to rethink what entertaining looks like now. By Evelyn Battaglia
“W
hat I’ve been talking about amongst my wonderful cooking friends is how out of practice we feel coming off the COVID year, and how to find a way to make it all simpler,” says Maria Nation, an avid host, accomplished screenwriter, and co-founder of Good Dogs Farm in Ashley Falls. “No elaborate dishes—just a bowl of soup, a glass of wine, and good friends. Honestly, that would be a perfect dinner party.” Surely, a long stretch of social distancing and separation has brought the “purposeful party” into sharper relief. The focus is as much on the who—whether that’s two, ten, or twenty people— as on the what, when, and where. These days, being together is where it’s at! The Berkshires has been a gathering spot for ages. Gilded Age tycoons held lavish soirees at their “summer cottages,” dancing the quadrille into the wee hours. And not just during the usual season—by the early 1900s, the Knickerbocker set betook themselves here to ring in the New Year with abandon. By all accounts, these geographical ancestors really knew how to have a good time. Edith Wharton, herself a 40-something NYC expat, famously held court at The Mount, impressing fastidious Henry James with her hospitality know-how. For Wharton, whose novels dripped
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with dialogue (she described her role as “merely a recording instrument”), lively discourse was the raison d’etre, not the roasted pheasant or Château d’Yquem—though she is purported to have greeted visitors with bubbly to wash down the bon mots. That esprit de corps is on a continuum, linking past and present. People still flock to the Berkshires for the same reasons—a lovely setting and a cerebral populace—only without an army of staff or a proclivity for ostentation. Like Wharton, modern-day hosts find joie de vivre in being in the company of others—no cultural dexterity required. “With its larger kitchen and actual dining room, our Southfield home is more conducive to entertaining than our small Manhattan apartment,” says longtime beauty editor Jane Larkworthy who, with husband Bertrand Garbassi, moved to the Berkshires full time during the pandemic. The back porch has also been a “godsend,” and once the temperature drops she brings out electric heaters and cozy blankets. After a gung-ho start—”we were like the new kids on the block trying to impress everyone by making eight dishes, which was way too much and exhausting!”—the couple is now more inclined to ping three people the day before and then pick up frozen ramen from Guido’s. “We are not big on lead time.” Nor is Nation. She finds the most memorable “parties” are the ones that occur organically—such as when friends drop by unexpectedly and you rummage in the refrigerator for leftovers. “Zero planning, zero stress, maximum friend time. That is the ultimate goal of any dinner party.” Even maximalist Martha Stewart—whose first country retreat was a one-room schoolhouse in nearby Middlebury, Mass.—wrote, “I think of entertaining as one friend treating another friend” in the original Entertaining (in 1982!). “What matters most is not elaborate technique or pomp or show but warmth, thought, and a sense of your individual style.” In modern parlance, be authentic—or “you do you.” For some that means preparing an elaborate smörgåsbord (or, say, Martha’s Country Pie Party for Fifty) and for others serving spiked hot chocolate and pfeffernüsse around the firepit. How does this approach play out at Thanksgiving, the archetypal dinner party? View that feast as America’s original potluck—the Wampanoag Native Americans brought deer, fish, and native crops, the pilgrims wild fowl and vegetables from England. Delegating is another way of honoring tradition; in a sample scenario, you roast the turkey and set the table (and handle cleanup), your guests contribute the sides and desserts. Gratitude will flow this way and that. more news and features at theBerkshireEdge.com
