Happy New Year!

Make it a great one.

What. Not who.

Photo: Leontine Linens, Sadie

What's worse than this conversation:

Me: "Sateen sheets are my favorite fabrication, they stay so cool and smooth."

Someone writing to this blog: "But they are sooo 80's."

Photo: Yves Delorme, Colibri

For those of you in fabric related fields, you need no review of what I meant in remarking that I prefer sateen, which is nothing at all like a satin: It is a sheeting fabrication which causes the Hostess to break out in hives and babble incoherently only occasionally spitting out a recognizable term such as, "slutty," "heathens," and "used car dealers". Indeed, it makes me as illogical as those who buy the absurd things. And another thing: Even in the '80's they were not passable.

Years spent on the production floors of some of the worlds greatest, largest, and worst fabric mills taught me to turn a blind eye to high fabric counts and country of orgins of a fabric but most especially those high-holiness count and COO claims made by linen brands. Firstly, the "perfection" of any article that comes in contact with your skin is subjective: Just note the number of sheeting types available at any high end linen shop. Secondly, various mills throughout the world have developed spectacular fabrications having nothing to do with thread counts but weave techniques and even more so, finishing. Ultimately, every part of the process is critical: The content and length of the staple fiber, the nature of the weave, the type and quality of the finishing, and the rigorousness of the quality control process for the fabric. Once all of that is complete, fabric is transferred to a cut and sew location. There, the goods are inspected carefully and cut, on the face side, against a marker which maximizes the longevity, quality, and feel of great fabrics and finishes.

It bores me when people attempt to impress with mention of Frette and Pratesi. I would never dare ask if they picked the linens for the feel or the conspicuous consumption of ownership, but if they have to tell me, I assume it is the later (Good taste and graciousness have nothing to do with the labels you buy or how much you spent. If I leave you with nothing else from our time together, that is what I hope will resound.). It is the ever-silent discerning host who has magnificent linens of any brand or level, who dresses the guestroom in them, and lovingly smooths them with the palm of his or her hand one last time while noting the high art they are, to whom I nod. Another nod to businesses with the same thoughtful touch: The Kimpton Group has drop dead magnificent sheets. It matters not to me who made them, only that they feel so exquisite they melt my cold fabric heart.

Photo: Restoration Hardware, Italian 600 Sateen

At the literal end of the day, no one checks the labels but everyone lays their head on your linen fabric to sleep. It is that feel, against a cheek, a hand, a leg which makes the difference. And the difference is made in comfort and great hand-feel. While these linens can be found reliably at the top of the market as can a great deal of worse-than average hand-feel items, they are also produced by all manner of mid-range manufacturer at more reasonable prices.


Photo: Williams-Sonoma Home, Foliage Sateen Bedding

The only absolute means of getting bed linens which are both aesthetically beautiful and completely pleasing to your senses is to make a sensory project of the hunt: Allow yourself some time to find new linens. Save a little if you can. Go to linen shops and stores and learn the various linen types, open the flaps of the packages and feel everything that is not made up on a display to be easily explored by your senses: I once located the perfect color of accent cases (from what, to the market unaware, would be a trusted designer but is actually only a licensee of that fine firm) which read "300 Count Cotton Broadcloth." Broadcloth? I wondered. Funny, that is shirting goods. Good thing I opened the packages and spread the cases out; they were so rough that to my hands it might as well have been burlap.

You should do the same. Don't worry about the labels on your sheets. Do worry about the way they feel and look: Do they please you entirely?

What do you prefer to sleep on?

Outside the standard serving box

The Blushing Hostess loves a creative presentation which utilizes uncommon serving vessels, but serving vessels nonetheless. One of my favorite presentations for cocktail nibbles is cocktail glasses. I find them even more pleasing when they are on stems of varying lengths and then there will always have a use for mismatched martini glasses and large champagne coupes.

Tables of Joy

The holiday season will never be long enough. Arrives on a quick, cold breeze and seems to be gone before I can even consider being entirely pleased with the decorating, inviting, entertaining, and correspondence. Today I told myself I would start in October next year instead of early November. I am anticipate that too will not been soon enough; there are good reasons the magazine and apparel industries work a year ahead: But oh, all the greatness that could be conceived if there were nothing but a perpetual Christmas season for me. I could reach a whole new level of compulsiveness if I never had to stop for another holiday. But I fear guests at the summer solstice party will be put out by Christmas wreaths. In this quirky little corner of the world, however, if you do these odd things for may years in a row while wearing pants with embroidered hounds on corduroy, you become "eccentric" which is far better than, "weird" and a good deal more esteemable than, "cooky." Not, that anyone here in eccentric North Salem misses the party if you are weird or cooky, they just spend a good deal more time remarking on your nuttiness at the post office, Kingsley's, and church.

Alright. But anyhow, Pals of mine. You're here for the goods and while I was largely not cooking this holiday, I made careful notes...

Christmas Eve at my Mother's lovely home was lovely. We do not keep a feast of Seven Fishes but we have traditionally dined on seafood regardless. This was the menu:

Before dinner cocktails in the kitchen:
Egg Nog with Dark Rum
Champagne and Chambord Cocktails
Truffled Mousse with Cornichon
Sopresseta, Cheeses, Crackers, and Breadsticks

Christmas Eve Dinner:
Potted Crab
Steamed Lobster with Drawn Butter
Clams and Mussels in White Whine Broth
Baked Haddock
Panzanella (Tomato Bread Salad)
Triple Chocolate Mousse


Fresh flowers and crackers for the place settings are important to our family tables.
Had we remained in the South on this evening, we would have overflowing bowls of camellia.

The potted crab was only okay, I took this suggestion from another blogger. While it was easy and full of wonderful lump crabmeat, it was not the prettiest or the most time-forgiving when it takes the guests a few minutes to get to the table.

The dishes selected for the drawn butter await await being filled in the kitchen before dinner.

The triple-chocolate mousse is my favorite nostalgic dessert from celebratory and birthday dinners with my family at Crabtree's Kittle House in nearby Mt. Kisco, New York. I will discuss the recipe at Blushing Hostess tomorrow but be advised, when using this method one needs to account for at least a solid hour of time for the dessert to come to room temperature. The dark chocolate layer at the bottom was still a bit harder and colder than I would have liked.

But on the whole, served with melba sauce, it was a delicious, rich, and a stunner.

And this is the Christmas Day dinner table at me sister-in-law Kelly's home last night. Such a grand evening. While I want to recount all of the food to you very accurately, I know I was able to make limited strides in trying all the hors d'oeuvres but they looked fabulous.

Hors d'oeuvres
Sauteed chorizo and mini-crostini
Bread boule with spinach dip
An extensive cheese selection
Cherry Tomatoes with Crab

Dinner:
Prime Rib au Jus
Fresh Pork Roast
Braised Carrots and Green Beans
Pan roasted New Potatoes and Glazed Onions
Chocolate Chip Cake and Whipped Cream
Assorted Pastries

Merry Christmas

We are celebrating. More on that later. Merriest of Christmases and holidays to you all.

Town and Country: The Real Deal

Did I ever whisper in your ear that for several years I worked for Talbots? I was in product development and sourcing; cashmere and so on.

Every year, the fall would roll around and a bunch of merchants would unload a ton of laptops in our conference room in New York and start throwing around a phrase that made me a little nuts: "town and country." And they would say things like this, "We need a houndstooth or some kind of heathered cashmere here and a shawl collar, you know, Cat, town and country..." I would go home from my perch above Broadway to horse country every evening and shake my head. That life, the one the phrase implied, I knew it well, wore it and still do. But in those days I knew no form of merchandising under labels who did not truly get it could make it saleable, and certainly never enviable.

As time passed, new neighbors moved in to our little community. Ralph. Martha. Among others. They mass marketed "town and country", they boiled the life we knew down to a lifestyle. But our paddock boots had seen worse. We muddled on and as blog posts from both those houses expose us, we still are just who are and we still dress in a style that is not as much purchased as handed-on.

This is me. Yes, it is recent. I am going to a horse show.

And that is what I wear in New York: Weathered polo. Good sunglasses ( I love Valentino). Diamonds. Sometimes a barn jacket or my oil coat. A fair number of pairs of boots because it seems I am always needing to wade through something. But if I do not need boots, I try to wear as many skirts as possible, which is largely in Florida as that is the way the weather has been this year and last. Many people here do the same, coincidentally, they are the same people I have seen around these parts for all time.

The gentleman who runs the local orchard is of this ilk: If I stop in to purchase fruit as his place, he is always waking the acreage in an oil coat, jeans, boots, and a cap. One day I asked him why he always wore khakis when I saw him at the store in town. He told me he always changed clothes before coming into town. "Who wants to see an old man in jeans?" He said. If he is fifty, I would be surprised. And even in jeans, he cuts a dashing figure. But "town and country" is his understanding of appropriate dress, not his style.

I know we are not alone, they hear me all over, even down south. Katie Crouch's book on Charleston's Camilla Society debs, Girls in Trucks highlighted this cultural mindset beautifully: Little girls and young ladies were allowed to wear dungarees and ride on the farm truck when at home. When they went into town, they did not wear jeans and they never rode to town in the truck.

By the same token, I never go to town in my country clothing. But, my "country" clothes have little to do with a color palette or a fashion genre, they are practical, the best on the market, and they will last forever. And I suppose, I have found ways to wear what I know best even in town. It just so happens our high boots are hip now, but even when they are not, we are still in them because it is the life we lead, not the trend we follow. Though I find it both a compliment and alternately amusing depending on the wearer.

The truth of the matter is that the "town" part is the complicated, edgier, trend-right part at which we need to work. I keep up with the Sartorialist and the fashion mags to be sure I have not been in the country too long. Still I find myself going that way... below are my Christmas gift, picked 'em out myself, can't wait to kick the tires. Ah-hem, I mean, I carefully selected them at Neimans, they should be nice to wear to town in inclement weather:

Tory Burch, Jackson Boot

These are my field boots. Vogel custom. I would never go out in these in town, they are riding boots after all. No matter the trend. And I get measured on-site, I don't trust those measure-yourself kits...


Paddock boot. I like a zip up after wearing laces for twenty years I gave in. Also Vogel Custom.
These are the coats I wear around here, they are Barbour because those are best. I had an ecstatic moment when they released the utility jacket below. It was as if they wanted me to look fabulous and be home in the country. That was not at all like Barbour. I still love it. Fabulous with high heeled boots, a pair of Paige's and a heathered turtleneck...
For that to be worn in properly and stay on for years, you need this:
Yes, it makes it smell like an oil coat. That's the best part.

They also make my barn coat, the Beaufort jacket.
No thorn dressing required. Great with loafers. Mine are Tod's. I have never had to replace them. Worth every cent. These are similar to my favorite pair:


But I am thinking I might really step out there and get these:

I know. Pretty crazy stuff.

Sometimes I need these. I love the formed heel and arch, great in mud season.

They are called Huntress, by Hunter, naturally, I love the name. I have a pair of J. Crew's high green field boot-style wellies, they are cute but work like a total joke in comparison to the Hunter's.

Marmont makes my layers and cold weather gear. This piece, the Kitzbuhel vest, is great:
Helly Hansen makes my foul weather gear. Right, it is not just for sailing.


I like TSE for sweaters: Really fine cashmere. Timeless styling. Deep, saturated colors.

I always wear an Hermes scarf in jacket weather in a contrast colorway for a little glam, even in the country, even with Marmot. I was in fashion, after all.

I am not partial to handbags in the country. And I never, never have carried a diaper bag. Not in town. Not in the country. It just isn't part of the thing, and come to think of it, I don't wear shawl collars either...

Flower arranging for Christmas

On Christmas Eve nine are expected for dinner; our immediate family. We go several steps further to make this a special evening at home. I adore fresh flowers and always try to keep a couple of arrangements in alternating places throughout the house. But for these glittering days, arrangements abound.

I do the arranging myself now. Since leaving big towns, I have not been satisfied with the level of skill or taste exhibited by florists in our little corner of Westchester as well as our little snip of Florida. Perhaps filling FTD orders keeps them from honing their skills? Whatever the reason, I do not have time to travel into Manhattan on a whim to pick up the rare-variety tonal French bouquets I prefer. I took matters into my own shears deciding I (and virtually every other colorblind, creativity-challenged, Waffle House refugee) certainly had enough talent to arrange flowers as badly as any FTD trained florist.

In the beginning I read several wonderful flower arranging books and I follow wedding blogs for inspiration. With the proliferation of seasonal flowers now available in markets one can have truly magnificent arrangements which are also reasonable - in some cases only a few dollars a week.

If you have not tried your hand at this, surely this is the year to preserve aesthetic beauty while mitigating costs. There are wonderful gently used books available on amazon.com for very little, and inexpensive flowers with which to practice in every grocery store. Here are two wonderful resources:


Flowers The Complete Book of Floral Design, by Paula Pryke


The Art of Floral Arranging, by Eileen Johnson

We are also lucky to have the astounding teaching group at the New York Botanical Garden which offers short, long, and certificate programs in arranging (and nearly every other horticultural pursuit imaginable). The funds spent at a local botanical garden are well worth it for the knowledge you will gain and the remarkable exhibits this contribution will help to bring to to your community.

These are my first couple of arrangements (destined for the powder rooms) for this week.

Subtle Distinctions in the Linen Drawer

One of my favorite magazine photos of this holiday season is a shot in Domino, December '08 of many and varied cocktail napkins laying about on a silver tray ready for guests to grab one as they leave the bar to mingle. They are in different shades of white or ecru with a number of trims, embroideries, and monograms. All were neatly pressed and thoughtfully arranged.

This reminds a host that they need not become too focused on a matchy-matchy presentation: Each napkin is lovely on its own merits, well cared for, and clearly precious to a long time linen collector. Who would ever miss a stack of a hundred identical hemstitch squares when all those little beauties have been offered as both a practical coaster and a small pieces of handworked mastery to admire?

A cocktail napkin refers to a single layer of fabric, normally a 5x5" square or circle or close, and not a quad-folded small napkin: That animal is in fact a luncheon or dessert napkin. These are used interchangeably, though technically not accurately, all over in these times. In fact, I note both Crate and Barrel and Pottery Barn calling their dessert item a "cocktail napkin." No, indeed. There are two practical reasons not to be bothered with dessert napkins for cocktails:

1. Dessert napkins are a good deal larger than cocktail napkins and require pressing, starching, ironing, and folding on three turns to arrive at a pressed quad-fold. Cocktail napkins, by comparison, take only quick swipe or two of pressing and often do not require starch. Do save yourself some time and work and see below for a comparison.

2. Secondly, a quad-folded napkin puts four layers of fabric beneath a glass and in some cases, the embellishment as well. As attractive as this looks, it is an unstable landing pad especially for long stemmed glasses which are top heavy on their own. To create balance under glasses and prevent wobbly stemware from toppling at the first hearty laugh, use a true cocktail napkin wide enough inside the hems for the bases of all your glassware patterns.

Below are a number of fine options available on the internet with a quick search. However, the best linen napkins I have found, of every variety, have been at antique fairs (I am partial to Charleston and Brimfield) and thrift stores everywhere. You have to be willing to go through piles of old linens but it will be time well spent: There is always something to see, learn, or appreciate in a stack of age old handwork, even if none of it is a taker for your taste
or need. And like anything vintage, if you find something you like, don't worry about the monogram: Often, that work is the beauty of thing, and everyone knows as many monograms converge as generations and offspring in a family tree; no one cares about that at all.

Whether you buy new or vintage, buy the ones you adore when you can. Don't wait for a moment to need them. Fates willing, a day will never come when you cannot find a use for a napkin and they are certain to be impossible to find the moment you need them.

Oval Single Monogrammed Cocktail Napkin, $60 set of 12, Gracious Style Fine Linens. From a new perspective, these are lovely.






Sferra Hemstitch Cocktail Napkins come in 16 color choices, $16 set of 6, Bergdorf Goodman sure to please everyone who wants matching, straight forward things and a great hostess gift.


Hemstitch Cocktail Napkins in white, $15 set of 12, Bumble Bee Linens. A reasonable price for new and another greaet gift. Easy peasy to care for and iron.


Dot cocktail napkins, $15 for 12, Bumble Bee Linens. Just as easy with a bit of non-glass tumbling embellishment.

The napkins below are luncheon or dessert napkins (if dessert is served in a location other than the dinner table, in which case, the diner keeps their dinner napkin). advertised as cocktail napkins, look carefully at all the pictures you can before buying on the internet.


Vintage luncheon napkins (advertised as "luncheon/cocktail/ dessert"), $20 for 10, Ruby Lane

11 vintage "cocktail" napkins, Trocadero/ European Market, $75

The Hostess declines foothold on slippery slope and other notes

"Here was So-and-so up in South Kensington; someone else in Bayswater, and somebody else, say, in Mayfair. And she felt quite continuously a sense of their existence... and she felt if only they could be brought together; so she did it.

And so it was an offering, to combine, to create... An offering for the sake of offering, perhaps. Anyhow, it was her gift. Nothing else had she of the slightest importance..."
- Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway (and as re-quoted by Peter Conradi in The Metaphysical Hostess)

One of the Hostess's more amusing moments over the last day was an email from a reader advising yours truly that a dubious entertaining blog was offering the gift of planning a future party for you. The Blushing Hostess Commandments largely originated from emails I received pointing out suggestions from this site; such as entertaining expertise as would place pots on the table from which to serve, setting the table with cocktail-sized paper napkins, and several terrifying others.

Lordy! Is this an offer to gratuitously turn guests into enemies? With this kind of help...

I was going to post today simply pointing out the marvelous Eddie Ross table setting tutorial, Table Manners. However, I feel I should add, in light of the apparent desire of 60 poor, innocent, entertaining souls to be lead down the piano-as-buffet horror show path, that while Eddie is a busy guy in high demand and may not be coming over to dish brown sludge (looking suspiciously like dog food) out of your saucier with a wooden spoon while reassuring you that you are indeed doing it correctly just because you are doing something; his help, as posted, can reach into your home and help you to retain, even garner, the respect of your peers and go a good deal further than, say, those paper napkins you have been counselled to purchase by feebleminded hostesses who are only kidding themselves.

Just a moment as I draw my soapbox out from under the console, hold please.... Ah-hem. Now hear this:

This entertaining gig is neither quick, easy, nor merits so little consideration as to be approached in a thoughtless, dim-witted fashion. The way you present to your guests tells them how you feel about them, how you respect them and want the quality of their experience to resound in their memory. Never, never take a guest for granted, even when eating cold pizza in a dorm at 3 am. Always do the very best you can.

This has nothing to do with money or time, either. Shop the Goodwill or a flea market (refer to Eddie, once again) if you feel you need something and have a beautiful table for $10. If you don't have $10, borrow what you need. If you have to use the "I don't have time," excuse at all, then do not invite until you do have the time to do it, or to see to it being done precisely and carefully. In my professional life, I worked long days and when it came to entertaining vendors and counterparts I would have loved to bring them into my home for dinner. I certainly knew how to hostess for them, but I did not have the man-hours to get it done properly. There were private restaurant and hotel dining rooms that could do this properly and I turned to them (admittedly with a very controlling hand) to be sure I did not fail my guests. There is nothing wrong with this alternative. Their experience trumps do-it-yourself wishes always.

This work is tiring, don't be afraid not to invite. My Godmother, Margaret, created a magical, perfectly executed and presented Easter Brunch for the multitudes of our family every year. The preparation took weeks: From gathering the hard-to-find menu, having all the food blessed, pressing every stitch of linens, gathering a mighty collection of beautiful flatware and table items, and finally, fielding a thousand "What may I bring? " calls. Ten or so years ago, when my Mother advised us we would no longer have Easter at Margaret's she gave a two word response when asked why, "She's exhausted." It is understandable. She did everything masterfully, but that level of good is tiring and surely one wonders what it might be like to sit at restaurant in Vienna instead. Go, go to Vienna then, I beg of you, rather than putting forth something which does not speak to your talent, abilities, and mannerliness.

While the Hostess has plenty to say on the subject of wealth having no relationship to great hostesses (having grown up in the once frugal, nay, downright cheap, old-money enclave of Bedford, New York), this discussion is beyond the scope of this post. Ultimately take two points away today:

1. Read Eddie Ross's post for correct and varied table settings for all your holiday occasions. Amy Vanderbilt would surely be proud.
2. Do not let anyone talk or blog you into accepting short cuts in your work - any work. You, my Precious, are better than that. This is your gift to give, give it brilliantly.

By the same token that I receive email asking for comments on pots on a table, I will get those demanding I not take an elitist or compulsive stand on the joy of spending time with others. Let me spare my detractors the typing: I will remain silent for all time before I capitulate to a casual cut-corner plan which encourages plastic cups at place settings. If this creates an environment of insiders within this blog, then I dare say there would be no insiders were there not equally as committed outsiders. I am confident this difference is what makes the world out there go 'round, but not in here, in my domain, nor at any gathering or table in my care.

Further to yesterday's swooshing about in an evening gown

I would like to add to the few gowns I pointed out yesterday my affection for the gowns below, as worn December 8th, 2008 to The New York Botanical Garden's Annual Winter Wonderland Ball sponsored by Chanel (which featured far too many people wearing black - surely, you all are aware there are indeed other colors...).



My hands-down favorite, Olivia Chantecaille. Photo: Style.com


Holly Dunlap's gown on right is gorgeous (not speaking for the headdress or the gown on the left). Photo: Style.com


This is marvelous on Byrdie Bell, co-chair. And I am not impartial because she and my daughter share a nickname... Photo: Style.com

The unmistakable swoosh of glamour in the evening

Don't talk to her when shooting stars are falling
Don't talk to her when she can smell the jasmine in the air...
When she's burning in the bedroom in an evening gown
-Don't Talk to Her at Night, Marc Cohn

Recently, E&E over at Elegant and Easy Life asked whether readers still wear an evening gown. I dare say, I am prevented from wearing anything I love once again this year, only one of the many unfortunate circumstances associated with being very pregnant. I miss the clothes most of all: They were both my career and my passion. The moment the ability to wear beautiful things slips away and I am relegated to tent-like trapeze things, I remind myself several times an hour that the child on the way will be so worth all the agonies great and small.

If I could, I would...

Oscar de la Renta . Poppy. Photo: Oscar de la Renta.

Missoni. Patsy. Neiman Marcus. Photo: Neiman Marcus.

Zac Posen. Siren. Bergorf Goodman.

Carmen Marc Volvo. Bergdorf Goodman.

Balenciaga vintage couture. The Frock.


Marc Bohan for Christian Dior. The Frock.



Carolina Herrera. Photo: Style.com


Carolina Herrera. Photo: Style.com

Pimm's No.3 Winter

Dispatch to Naval Officer Overseas
Embarked aboard the USS That's a Secret

To: Dashing Surface War Officer
From: Your wife (Code name: Blushing Hostess)
Date: Now
Re: Pimm's No.3 Winter's got my yule up

What is it with this stuff? Stop. Looked all over cannot find. Stop. Even the Liquor Weasel is stumped. Stop. Can order it from the UK for $80 in shipping per. Stop. Preposterous. Stop. Suggest Captain consider to stock ye' vessel's liquor closet full. Stop.