We are a race of party people. We’ll convene for a birthday bash just as readily as we’ll plan a get together for no reason at all. We love celebrations of all shapes and sizes, and thoughts seem to turn to more elaborate celebrations around holidays and high-profile events. But sometimes, once we decide to have a party, fear often sets in. We begin to worry -- how are we going to keep our guests fed, entertained and, most of all, talking about our party for years to come?
This five-part series will put those fears to rest as we show the audience how to plan and pull off the best parties ever imagined. We’ll delve into the events that make us feel like partying, and for inspiration, we’ll explore the places where revelry happens and meet the people who really know how to make these festivities come alive. While on our journey, we’ll also uncover the traditions behind the occasions and, naturally, sample the best food and drink for celebrations.
ULTIMATE PARTIES will take us from Hollywood’s star-studded post-Oscar balls to the rowdy infield revelry that always accompanies the genteel Kentucky Derby. We’ll eat sausages and drink brewskis on Super Bowl Sunday and share a glass of bubbly and a bit of foie gras at midnight on New Year’s Eve.
Some special events throughout the year just can’t go by without food, drink, good company and, sometimes, a bit a mischief, too. We’ll frolic and delight as we learn how to create the best celebrations. Here are some ideas we had while researching a series on the ultimate parties. Read these and you'll never fear putting on a party again. So come join us and party hearty!
NEW YEAR’S EVE:
To some, New Year’s Eve means a quiet evening at home with family and friends, sharing New Year’s resolutions and a kiss at the stroke of midnight. Others may opt for a black tie party with caviar and champagne. But we’ll see there’s more to do than simply watch the ball drop in Time’s Square. Whether in your own backyard or halfway across the planet, we’ll find out how the most fun and unusual parties the world has to offer are put together and how we can take a cue from these master merry makers for our own revelry.
As we uncover what party-goers do all around the world, we’ll have our fortunes told at midnight just as people do while in the shadows of the Great Pyramids of Egypt. Like revelers in Tokyo, we’ll whoop it up with Buddhist monks, clang temple bells to scare away evil spirits and bring the spirit of the Far East into our own homes. Thrill-seekers can even ring in the New Year atop Mount Kilimanjaro or biking through the outback Down Under. And we’ll explore places a little closer to home for these kinds of outdoor celebrations.
For those who want a more traditional way to spend their evening, we’ll make plans for the ultimate in New Year’s Eve parties. From cocktail soirees to costume balls, we’ll show you how to choose the best champagnes and how to get your guests to dance the night away like cosmopolitan revelers do at hot spots from Los Angeles to New York. If the festivities carry on until the wee hours of the morning, we’ll transform the living room into a home base for a slumber party where tipsy guests can continue the celebration, exchange profound thoughts on the New Year and, most importantly, share the best Bloody Marys the next morning.
SUPER BOWL SUNDAY:
There are football games, during which fans have been known to paint their faces and smash their heads with beer cans, and then there is the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl is the at-home party event of the year, surpassing even New Year’s Eve. It marks the end of the football season and the showdown between the best two teams in the country. Although pro football has been an institution since 1920, football seems to be a made-for-television sport, with home viewers often enjoying a better view of the game than season ticket holders.
Whether they’re on the couch or in the bleachers, all football fans crave hearty snacks that can withstand being squeezed during a disappointing fumble, tossed in the air to celebrate a completed pass or spiked for a touchdown. For our armchair quarterbacks, we’ll see how to create and saddle up to football friendly buffets of Buffalo wings, pizza, chips and dip, potato skins and, of course, a beer or two. We’ll also dive into more unusual football fare, like Creole gumbo, smoked salmon, Dungeness crab and tofu kabobs.
For fans lucky enough to be at the game, we’ll show them how to pull off the ultimate in tailgating. These die-hard fans gather for a pre-game party in the parking lot. But chili and hot dogs are no longer the fare of choice at most tailgate parties. We’ll learn from experienced car cooks how to concoct hot and spicy jambalaya, boil lobsters, and grill gourmet sausages in the parking lot – we’ll even make bacon, eggs and pancakes on the engines of our cars! Some of our favorite football all-stars are also quick in the kitchen, so we’ll be sure to round up some of their favorite recipes as well. Even on the asphalt, we’ll see how to dine in style, whether it’s chowing down with plastic forks from team-oriented paper plates, or dining with fine china and drinking Budweisers from crystal glasses.
But it’s not all about the food. Whether it’s in the parking lot or at home, we’ll find out how to make our pre-game party even more memorable. At the stadium, we can tow our own hot tub to the parking lot for a little dip before the game. At home, we can dress in full team mascot garb just like those crazy fans in the stands. Sporting your team colors and doing “The Wave” is only the beginning as we discover how to party all the way through the game and into the night at the ultimate in post-game victory (or consolation) parties.
OSCARS:
Vanity Fair, DreamWorks and Miramax – these are just a few of the companies clamoring for a prize that some consider more important than winning Best Picture: the Best After-Oscars Party award. In a flurry of flowers, celebrities, music and food, party planners toil for months before the big day to get their party just right to attract Hollywood’s A-List personalities. We’ll turn our audience into winners, nominees and celebrities as we take them for walk down the red carpet to plan an Oscar party sure to rival the galas for the stars.
We’ll uncover the best ways to have a homebody’s Oscar bash. We’ll invite friends to a costume party where everyone dresses as their favorite actor, actress or director. We’ll feast on everything from pizza to brie, and as we watch the awards being doled out on the little screen at home, we can critique the stars’ choice of attire while we relax on our couch in costume or just jeans and a T-shirt.
After the Academy Awards ceremony, we’ll see what it’s like to feast and frolic at the elite Governor’s Ball, where 40 pounds of caviar, 25 pounds of rare black truffles and nearly 1,000 bottles of wine get devoured in one night. We’ll learn how to recreate an elegant sit-down dinner with courses of exotic fare that look too beautiful to eat. At-home party people can sample star-studded creations like wilted organic spring greens with foccacia croutons, ahi tuna tartare and pistachio crusted pork tenderloin with grapefruit salsa – fare usually found only in California.
Leave your star maps in the car and join us for this inside look at how to host a bash as chic and unique as Hollywood’s best parties.
RUN FOR THE ROSES -- THE KENTUCKY DERBY BASHES:
Pulses racing, horses galloping, Juleps sloshing and Kentucky’s famed Hot Brown sandwich flying – it must be the Kentucky Derby. If you’re going to bring people together for only two minutes of sports, you’d better make it worth the trip – and Kentuckians do just that. We’ll take our audience there to see it all as the Bluegrass State celebrates the annual Run for the Roses on the first Saturday in May.
The festivities begin the week before the Derby with an exciting steamboat race down the Ohio River between Louisville’s Belle of Louisville and New Orleans’ Delta Queen. And the week would not be complete without the Pegasus Parade, several rousing rounds of “My Old Kentucky Home” and fireworks nightly over the Ohio River.
On the day of the Derby, we’ll witness all the race’s traditions that we can bring home to our own parties. We’ll get our guests to don some head wear for our own version of Kentucky’s Hat Parade, where Southern belles of all ages pull out their favorite flamboyant chapeaux and model them for the other revelers. The winner’s hat is immortalized in the Derby Museum at Churchill Downs where visitors stand in awe. Then we’ll grab a Mint Julep and settle in to watch the races with a view better than the locals’. In their boxes in the grandstands, famous Kentucky families rub elbows and sip bourbon with down-home folk as we all wait for post time. Down on the infield, another type of celebration is taking place. This rowdy, julep-slinging crowd can sometimes be found in various states of undress and intoxication and is always known to have a rollicking good time watching the race, whether or not they remember the outcome.
After the race is run and the winner trots off to the paddock bedecked in a blanket of roses, we’ll settle down at home for a traditional Kentucky Derby dinner. Kentucky Burgoo, fried green tomatoes, peas and collard greens, mashed potatoes, country ham and, of course, the divine chocolate and pecan combination called Winner’s pie will fill our plates as we sample Derby recipes handed down through the generations. At the end of the day, filled with food, drink and Southern hospitality, we’ll raise our silver julep cups once again and toast to the ultimate gentleman’s sport and the ultimate Southern celebration.
CINCO DE MAYO:
It’s the Fifth of May, and it’s time for a fiesta. Mix a Mexican Hat Dance with some margaritas. Add a good sized helping of mariachi music, and you’re ready to go! For some, this holiday has become merely an excuse to down tequila shots while munching on tortilla chips and tacos. But this festival of cultural diversity, first celebrated in the 1960s by groups of Chicanos to define their racial identity, means more to others. School children of all cultures learn traditional dances and wear red, green and white in honor of Mexico. We’ll seek out all types of Cinco de Mayo celebrations, from traditional fiestas to modern city street parties to show us how to have the ultimate in Mexican independence day parties.
Most Cinco de Mayo festivities take place outside the home, so we’ll travel to crowded city street celebrations in California and Mexico as well as find clubs and bars playing hot ethnic dance music and pouring out margaritas that will inspire our party plans. We’ll experience the pulse-pounding rhythm as professional Mexican dancers strut their stuff alongside revelers just moving to the beat. We’ll sample food all along the way -- in restaurants, from taco stands and street vendors. We’ll feast on traditional cuisine like carne asada tacos, beans and rice and wash it down with a cold, smooth margarita, con sal, por favor (with salt, please). We’ll also sample more novel interpretations of Mexican food, like sushi laced with hot sauce and sour cream as well as exotic fruit salsas and vegetarian alternatives to beef and pork burritos.
Experience the flavor, sights and sounds of the “batria” (homeland) as we learn to celebrate South-of-the-Border style.
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