In Polite Company: The Weirdest, But Also The Coolest, Party Trick
I can't believe it took me this long to figure it out.
Welcome to Quaintrelle, a weekly newsletter written by me, journalist-turned-sommelier and party host, Erin Henderson.
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Here I share my my insights from decades of working in hospitality to bring back stylish and stress free hosting.
Won’t you join us?
In This Week’s Issue…
Entertaining: The best room in the house. My (new!) favourite way to elevate the lavatory from functional to fabulous (seriously, some of my guests go in there just to hang.)
Food: Dinner Party Tips from a Chef! We co-hosted a food and wine pairing workshop last night and these were her best takeaways.
Drink: What a Welcome Cocktail Needs. And What it Doesn’t.
“There’s a lot involved in going to the bathroom for women.” – Leah Remini
Ok, so weird, and slightly gross, but, also, facts. Today we’re talking about the bathroom conditions when having people over. I know! Ewww. But… reality.
Especially when that reality is you live in a small space, as I do, and only have one bathroom. That bathroom being smack-dab in the middle of the party action. Mine happens to be right beside the dining room, and the dining room flows, without walls, between the kitchen to the living room, like one, big room.
But even if you have a ginormous house, probably there is one, central bathroom that guests use the most, and chances are, that bathroom is near the activity.
(Should we call it salle de bain, instead? Is that more polite? OK. We’ll do that.)
For years, I have held very strict policies on bathroom salle de bain maintenance for soirees. The first being, clean it. (Hand on heart, I am actually shocked how many parties I’ve been invited to where this has – quite obviously – not been done.) The next CTA: put out extra towels and TP so guests can help themselves without routing through your cupboards. And finally, a very lovely touch is lighting a scented candle and possibly even opening the window just the teensiest crack, if appropriate.
But guys, over my birthday weekend a few weeks ago (yes, I am still talking about it), I came up with something that was truly genius.
Without trying to oversell it, this was the most impressive hosting move I have ever done, and truly, everyone who used my salle de bain (this is getting long. Herewith it’s SdB), was not only amazed, but truly grateful for the sensitive attention to detail. Every time a person left the SdB they actually commented on it.