From the Vault: Mad Men Party
Okay, swanksters, the moment we've been waiting for is finally dawning. After over a year of waiting, tonight is the premiere of season five of Mad Men. It will be 1966 at Sterling Cooper Draper Price and many homes throughout the land will follow suit. Whether they are discovered on a weekend forage at a favorite vintage shop or liberated from the breakfront of a beloved great aunt, vintage homewares will appear on party tables. Three-tiered canape trays are just right loaded with fare as simple as celery and olives or as exotic as shrimp puffs. It is as important for the accomplished hostess to serve her devilled eggs from a tray specifically designed for them as it is for the man of the house to fill the ice bucket and to position the tongs for the ice. Do you or your guests truly have the stomach for such authentic party fare of the day as devilled ham, anchovy dip, negimaki, tomato aspic or a hefty slice of prune pie?
Home entertaining guides from the day always start off by asking the reader to assess her (always her) hostess style. Are you a Betty, navigating the web of trophy wife perfection, or a supremely organized and sensuous Joan? If you're a Peggy, will your guests see your freewheeling side, your conservative side or both? Are you a Megan, whose parties are the stuff of legend? Or are you one of the swinging bachelors, brush cut freshly buzzed, at the ready with a Ronson lighter and a quip?
Any hipster who came of age as my friends and I did has an inherent reverence for mid-century modernism. We read about it either in books from the day foraged from the Seventh Street Book Store or in reprints picked up at the Saint Marks or Cooper Square bookstores. We wore it in plaid and argyle and pert prints, in squared shoulders and shirtwaists from Antique Boutique, in pegged jackets and sweater sets from Screaming Mimis. We decorated our tiny apartments with it. Atomic Passion vended the stilted kitsch of the fifties while just around the corner, Mod Podge recirculated the sixties. For years until cell phones finally won, the telephone in our urban home resided on a wire telephone table so authentic that the Nathan Quality sticker was still adhered to the bottom of the gray vinyl seat.
If ever there was an event that Urban Home is poised to help you host, it's a Mad Men party. A good host always has a bottle of red, a bottle of white, and beer available for guests, but what party arranges itself more effortlessly around cocktails? Urban Home's cocktail party guide contains everything you need to host a successful gathering. Retro cocktails are a special passion in our urban home: so far, we've printed the stories and recipes for such swanky classics as Black Russians, Corpse Revivers, Harvey Wallbangers, and Bloody Marys right down to the buffet. Mad Men is set in New York so you may want to offer Manhattans, but the official cocktail of SCDP is the martini. At Urban Home, we serve them clean, French and with sake, and we're not done perfecting martini recipes yet. We love martinis so much we even make fondue from them.
Fondue is the defining food of swanky sixties revelry. but it's not the only party food we serve at urban home. There are reasons dips are usually served at parties: they are simple to make, serve and consume, and they do their part to mitigate some of the effects of booze. White bean and goat cheese dips are especially good slathered on rounds of sourdough while tart hosts can double the effect by serving cream cheese dip with cream cheese and chive biscuits. Arrange a board of pears and Stilton and serve it with a bowls of quatre frommages and olive relish. Arrange a sideboard of simple dishes that are easily prepared before the party and replenished during it, such as cappellini with lemon and capers, fire and ice, fennel salad and French potato salad. Place bowls of curried popcorn in the circulating space for nibbling as guests interact. There is no need to serve from the kitchen but if you want to, how about a big pot of Carbonnade or a sheet of fig and prosciutto pizza, from either of which guests can help themselves? Nor is dessert necessary, but if you wish, pumpkin cheesecake, chocolate hazelnut tart, lemon cookies, apricot bars, even cranberry nut bread are all appropriate to the spirit of party dishes as those were defined by the homekeeping letters of the day. If the latter, serve it with maple butter.
To set the scene, we have guides for stocking the bar, setting up the buffet, even printable party invitations. We've redecorated dining room, living room, bedroom and home office and even set up a second urban home in the mid-century mecca of Los Angeles, and we did all of it under the all-seeing gaze of no less a pillar of twentieth century design than another legend named Draper. If you're making your own cunning outfit, we've discussed the period perfect Better Homes and Gardens Sewing Book. But then we love books so much that we have an entire homekeeper's library devoted to them. We have a guide for conditioning the fresh flowers that thoughtful guests will no doubt bring. We even set up a playlist for you at spotify -- look for Urban Home Mad Men Party; log in required. However you time travel to the swinging sixties, Urban Home can help you host the party for it.
Home entertaining guides from the day always start off by asking the reader to assess her (always her) hostess style. Are you a Betty, navigating the web of trophy wife perfection, or a supremely organized and sensuous Joan? If you're a Peggy, will your guests see your freewheeling side, your conservative side or both? Are you a Megan, whose parties are the stuff of legend? Or are you one of the swinging bachelors, brush cut freshly buzzed, at the ready with a Ronson lighter and a quip?
Any hipster who came of age as my friends and I did has an inherent reverence for mid-century modernism. We read about it either in books from the day foraged from the Seventh Street Book Store or in reprints picked up at the Saint Marks or Cooper Square bookstores. We wore it in plaid and argyle and pert prints, in squared shoulders and shirtwaists from Antique Boutique, in pegged jackets and sweater sets from Screaming Mimis. We decorated our tiny apartments with it. Atomic Passion vended the stilted kitsch of the fifties while just around the corner, Mod Podge recirculated the sixties. For years until cell phones finally won, the telephone in our urban home resided on a wire telephone table so authentic that the Nathan Quality sticker was still adhered to the bottom of the gray vinyl seat.
If ever there was an event that Urban Home is poised to help you host, it's a Mad Men party. A good host always has a bottle of red, a bottle of white, and beer available for guests, but what party arranges itself more effortlessly around cocktails? Urban Home's cocktail party guide contains everything you need to host a successful gathering. Retro cocktails are a special passion in our urban home: so far, we've printed the stories and recipes for such swanky classics as Black Russians, Corpse Revivers, Harvey Wallbangers, and Bloody Marys right down to the buffet. Mad Men is set in New York so you may want to offer Manhattans, but the official cocktail of SCDP is the martini. At Urban Home, we serve them clean, French and with sake, and we're not done perfecting martini recipes yet. We love martinis so much we even make fondue from them.
Fondue is the defining food of swanky sixties revelry. but it's not the only party food we serve at urban home. There are reasons dips are usually served at parties: they are simple to make, serve and consume, and they do their part to mitigate some of the effects of booze. White bean and goat cheese dips are especially good slathered on rounds of sourdough while tart hosts can double the effect by serving cream cheese dip with cream cheese and chive biscuits. Arrange a board of pears and Stilton and serve it with a bowls of quatre frommages and olive relish. Arrange a sideboard of simple dishes that are easily prepared before the party and replenished during it, such as cappellini with lemon and capers, fire and ice, fennel salad and French potato salad. Place bowls of curried popcorn in the circulating space for nibbling as guests interact. There is no need to serve from the kitchen but if you want to, how about a big pot of Carbonnade or a sheet of fig and prosciutto pizza, from either of which guests can help themselves? Nor is dessert necessary, but if you wish, pumpkin cheesecake, chocolate hazelnut tart, lemon cookies, apricot bars, even cranberry nut bread are all appropriate to the spirit of party dishes as those were defined by the homekeeping letters of the day. If the latter, serve it with maple butter.
To set the scene, we have guides for stocking the bar, setting up the buffet, even printable party invitations. We've redecorated dining room, living room, bedroom and home office and even set up a second urban home in the mid-century mecca of Los Angeles, and we did all of it under the all-seeing gaze of no less a pillar of twentieth century design than another legend named Draper. If you're making your own cunning outfit, we've discussed the period perfect Better Homes and Gardens Sewing Book. But then we love books so much that we have an entire homekeeper's library devoted to them. We have a guide for conditioning the fresh flowers that thoughtful guests will no doubt bring. We even set up a playlist for you at spotify -- look for Urban Home Mad Men Party; log in required. However you time travel to the swinging sixties, Urban Home can help you host the party for it.
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