Eager to entertain but pressed for time, we tune in, log on and hire out
It was another routine workday for Suzanne Williamson, author of “Entertaining for Dummies” (IDG Books) and consultant to Federated Department Stores on home-related matters.
The resident of Beaufort, S.C., was giving one of her frequent seminars on how to entertain, this time at a store in Columbus, Ohio. As she looked over her audience, most of whom in their 20s and 30s, she was struck by the fact that a significant number were men.
A burly truck driver approached her afterward and said that cooking is his passion and the Food Network’s Emeril Lagasse his muse. At another seminar a few days later, this time in Memphis, a male lawyer in his 30s told Williamson that he was addicted to Martha Stewart’s TV show.
Williamson’s curiosity was piqued sufficiently to begin analyzing her audiences. She wanted to plan seminars that played better to her participants’ wants and needs. “The art of entertaining is in flux right now, and my audiences are living proof,” she says.
Instead of middle-age, stay-at-home women, it’s professionals in their 20s or 30s who seek advice or try to learn how to entertain, she says. Many of them are men. “Sometimes, I have more men in the audience than women,” she says. “They’re used to watching TV or videos and want to see how food is prepared rather than read about it. So, the food shows are a huge influence on them right now.”
Williamson’s grass-roots research is backed up by the statistics and assessments of foodies and food professionals. Entertaining at home is on the rise, says Ann Clurman, a partner in the New York research firm Yankelovich Partners. “From 1997 to 2000, the incidence of family get-togethers increased from 55 percent to 66 percent and sit-down parties rose from 15 to 21 percent,” she says.
As for who’s entertaining, it’s a wide gamut, adds Eileen Opatut, senior vice president of programming and production at the Food Network in New York, which presents shows related to every aspect of the food milieu. “Everyone has a love of food regardless of their sex, age or ethnic group,” Opatut says, “but it’s the younger Boomers and the generation X-ers who are desperate to know how to cook and entertain.”
A significant number of the former group are busy raising children now and can’t get out much, and the latter never learned how to entertain because their parents never bothered with it, Opatut says. Other young professionals are busy with their careers and need shortcuts to entertain every once in a while, either for pleasure or for business.
At age 46, Opatut puts herself in the Boomer category and is trying to play catch-up by watching her own network’s shows. So are many others. “As of this past September, we have 52 million subscribers and are adding about 800,000 to 1 million homes a month,” she says.
Williamson isn’t surprised by these statistics, given the raves she hears consistently from her audiences about the many chef TV shows. Noting the big crowds at her own seminars around the country, she confidently asserts that “entertaining at home is only going to get more and more popular in the future. It’s actually the newest form of entertainment.”
The idea of entertaining as entertainment started slowly years ago. “In the old days, women who stayed at home were looking for ways to have a social life, so they planned dinner parties. Today, both parents work in most families, but share a growing focus on their children and extended families, so entertaining has become more of a luxury, instead of a way to facilitate a social life,” says Chris Wolf, vice president of The Food Channel, a trade organization based in Chicago that runs a Web site and publishes TrendWire, a newsletter that monitors the food and entertaining industries.
This too-busy lifestyle has meant finding new ways to entertain, which are sometimes simply updated reincarnations of the old ways. The philosophy behind the trend goes something like this: “I want to have people over, but it’s all I can do to get home from work, get the house cleaned and get the meat in the oven, so I’ll have everybody bring a course. Or, I’ll doctor up some side dishes from a fancy takeout deli,” Wolf says.
The goal is the same: to get people together. “The ideal of having loved ones gather around a table and eat good food is one of life’s fundamental necessities. We’re not talking about fussy little dinner parties, but rather doing things with meaning and depth,” says Dorothy Kalins, editor in chief of Saveur magazine.
Opatut is a case in point.
“I used to believe that I couldn’t invite anyone over unless everything was going to be fantastic. Now I’m over that. The gathering itself is the important part of the experience,” she says. Of course, Opatut’s job means she can easily go to experts for advice, but so can others, she says. Not only are there more magazines and books on entertaining, with many in the learn-how-to-cook mode, but there are Web sites and TV shows that offer instant answers.
At the Food Network, anyone can call or e-mail Sarah Moulton on “Cooking Live,” which airs at 6 nightly on the cable channel. “Most of the time, the focus of this show ends up being how to make that one great course or how to make a dinner party,” Opatut says.
One reason special-occasion cooking is so popular is that people prepare fewer daily meals, preferring instead to pick up a good, nutritious dinner at a local supermarket or gourmet shop. “Now that [cooking’s] not so much of a drudge, we want to do it. Cooking for a crowd is becoming everyone’s favorite hobby and indulgence,” Wolf says.
Among the most popular entertaining trends are the progressive dinner, in which everyone shares the effort by going to a different home for each course, and the gourmet dinner club, in which a host assigns courses to various guests, sometimes coordinating the recipes to ensure that the dinner will be cohesive.
Even TV dinners have taken on new meaning as people throw parties themed to their favorite shows, complete with “entertaining menus to match the entertainment,” Williamson says.
Some homeowners are resorting to personal chefs, who provide ready-made meals that need only to be heated and served.
“People are seeking convenience and healthy, fresh meals so they can spend more time with their families and friends,” says David Mackay, founder with his wife, Susan Titcomb, of the United States Personal Chef Association in Rio Rancho, N.M., which trains chefs and offers referrals.
Eight years ago, Mackay estimates, there were 1,000 people using personal chefs; now about 100,000 do. (For more information, call 800-995-2138 or log on to www.hireachef.com.).
The cocktail party, a relic of the Baby Boomers’ parents’ generation and before, offers still another way to entertain a sizable group. Many hosts find it best to have this choice catered because of the quantity of food and drink needed.
Chicago business executive Michael Parsons, 43, director of national accounts for Los Angeles-based U.S. Marketing and Promotions, recently hosted such an event. Because he travels so often he finds it hard to get together regularly with small groups of friends at cozy dinners.
On a recent Saturday night in October, he invited about 120 to his new West Loop home, with Blue Plate caterers providing the food and drink, including plenty of hors d’oeuvres, desserts, a full bar and champagne and fresh strawberries. “I wanted to show off the place that my designer Marshall Erb helped me put together, wanted to see friends and also wanted to expand my circle, so I told friends to bring friends.”
For those who want to cook, the food and recipes often become the entertainment, thanks to Opatut’s network and magazines such as Saveur and Cook’s Illustrated. Says Opatut, “At the Food Network, we expanded our programming a few years ago, left the studio-chef format, and went out into the world to put all these recipes into a greater context. We show people where the food came from and how it came to their table.”
Saveur, a glossy, four-color publication, does the same thing in print by exploring the lore and preparation techniques behind the fare of various cultures throughout the world. The premise is that knowing the pedigree of a dish–how it originated, why it is made the way it is and how to make it authentically–entertains both the chef and the guests.
Take cassoulet from southwestern France, which incorporates regional white beans and preserved meat from local game. “Knowing this, and how to make a delicious version, gives depth and substance to the entertaining experience and makes it more satisfying to everyone involved,” Kalins says.
Cook’s Illustrated, almost completely in black and white except a back page with color photographs, focuses on telling how to make the very best versions of dishes with simple instructions. A recent issue focused on broiled salmon with “perfect texture,” “really good” vegetable stock, “better stuffed” tomatoes, “foolproof” dessert souffles and caramel sauce. It even rates utensils and appliances so there’s less of a chance to mess up.
The magazines and television programs are products of the early ’90s. The Food Network was founded in 1993, Cook’s Illustrated the same year and Saveur in 1994. According to Clurman, all should continue to flourish because entertaining at home shows no signs of abating.
Clurman cites several factors driving the popularity of home entertaining, including a paradoxical force she calls the “boredom boom.”
“Despite the fact that everyone is scurrying around and totally stressed out, we’re all basically bored,” she says. “Everyone says they want to have more fun and break this pattern, but everything thrown at them is the same old same-old and none of it is inspiring.”
Life has become predictable, she adds. “Mystery is missing in action. We know who’s calling us from telephone ID, the sex of our babies before they’re born, when the next sale is and the fact that there will be a grilled chicken sandwich on every menu in America. We are overstimulated and undersatisfied.”
Food is a logical place for people to try to break the boredom because the experience can be novel without being revolutionary. “Most of us don’t have the time, energy or money to revolutionize our lives,” Clurman says. But it’s a cinch to make a new dish, cruise the aisles of the local grocery store for a new product or surf channels to find a fascinating TV show on food.
Recent research done by the Yankelovich firm shows that more than half of respondents say they enjoy shopping for food because they like to see what’s new in the stores, almost half are looking for new foods to eat at home, and three-quarters say they like to try new dishes when they go out to dinner.
Executive chef Jeffrey Begina concurs on the latter point. He says a majority of diners at his Nicolina’s Cucina restaurant in the NBC Tower experiment in their choices, ordering specials not on the menu nightly as well as his more creative recipes such as a varied Italian antipasto and seafood concoctions such as a hazelnut-encrusted tilapia with papaya salsa and coconut flakes.
“There are so many restaurants in the city, and if you look at their menus so many are similar,” says Begina, 39, who studied at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y. “I try to make things stand out. Right now my mushroom tortellini, which are the size of a fist, are a big hit. I’m also trying to use new woods in the fireplace such as applewood and white oak rather than mesquite. It’s hard being new, but you have to do it to compete.”
Yet another factor fueling the growing desire to entertain, be it in the home or at a restaurant, echoes the less scientific but heartfelt observations of many food gurus. “Many of us have a feeling of disconnect with our neighbors and friends, and we’re seeing that people are really eager to connect with each other again,” Clurman says.
Linda Biebel discovered a way to bring singles together in an entertaining way when she started Dinner by Request in suburban St. Louis three years ago. She organizes dinner parties at a variety of restaurants, putting together a group of six–three men and three women–by age (typically 35 to 50) and interests. Diners have become friends, dated or gone into business, and one couple has married.
The club has about 150 members, who are invited to a minimum of nine dinners in 13 months. Membership costs $395, with dinners extra.
“It’s a way [to have] good food, good conversation and a good time,” says Biebel, who is divorced. “I understand this is needed. It’s hard, whether you’re in your 20s, 30s . . . or 50s, to meet other people. This is a way to cut the risk and still be classy.”
