Miss Manners Goes to a Party

The Do's and Don'ts of Guesting + Hosting

Come on in! Leave your shoes at the door.

Recently I saw

Nik Sharma

post a snippet from an NYT article on his Instagram. The piece was about the do’s and don’ts of throwing a party. One planner admonished hosts for asking guests to remove their shoes. “It’s rude.” She deadpanned.

Nope.

The party planner is wrong. Dead wrong.

I’m not sure about your city, but in Toronto, where I live, the sidewalk is literally speckled with dog poop (I hope it’s dog poop), spit wads, random detritus of city living, along with the actual dirt that smog and car exhaust and train fumes create.

So you’ll forgive me if I don’t want that petri dish being tracked through my house.

It’s become common place in my invitations to encourage guests to bring slippers or other indoor footwear. And you know what? They do. Happily.

I’ve never had anyone get upset about removing their shoes, but maybe it’s a Canadian thing?

I have a very good friend from England. It’s my understanding that the English, and the good people of the UK in general, are footwear-in-the-house people. (I think I heard Stanley Tucci, who now resides in London, say he would wear his shoes to bed if he could.)

On one of her first visits to my home, my British friend walked in and kept her shoes on. I was aghast. She was aghast that I was aghast. We compromised. I sprayed the soles of her shoes with Lysol, and then she headed straight out to the patio, where we enjoyed our apéro out-of-doors, where shoes are meant to be.

Because my friend respects me, and my boundaries, she has never worn shoes in my house since then. And I vow to always wear mine in hers. It’s a give and take.

PS – It’s always a good idea to keep spare slippers around for anyone who might be in need. These spa slippers are an inexpensive investment in making your guests comfortable.

I think, if I had to pick one rule to trump all others when it comes to throwing a party, it is to be present.

I don’t just have strict standards for guests, I uphold equally high expectations for hosts. (If you would like to see my 7 Rules for for Stress Free Hosting, I’ve linked it at the bottom of this post.)

A personal pet peeve of mine is to arrive at someone’s house, and they’re not yet done preparing dinner. They pour you a glass of wine and you take a seat at the kitchen island to chat while they finish up. So far, so good, nothing wrong with that.

Until you start chatting about your work week or the fight you had with your mother, and they absently murmur, “oh, yeah?” every couple of minutes. You realize you’re not being listened to at all; your host’s attention is squarely on stuffing the goose or cracking the sea urchin, or whatever they’ve got planned for their Grand Unveiling at the dinner table. And as a result, you feel ignored, in the way, and maybe even a bit childish for trying to talk about things that matter to you, when really, the host had something better to do.

A few days ago,

India Knight

wrote a fantastic piece on her Substack, Home. (If you haven’t discovered her captivating writing, you must give it a read. But do so after reading this.) Anyway, her article was a fabulous recount of her glamorous grandmother, who was an absolute loss in the kitchen, but an unmatched champion in shopping for ready-made meals. A roast chicken from a butcher, a delicate tart from a baker, excellent olives from another merchant.

As you can guess, India’s whole treatise was in favour of store-bought foods. Who cares whose hand mixed the cake so long as it’s good?

And I whole-heartedly support that. I love to cook; however, it overwhelms many people I know. If you fall into the later category, do what India’s grandma did, and buy a roast chicken, some roast vegetables, and a loaf of bread, and call it done. No one will have more fun if you plucked the bird yourself – especially if you’re still de-feathering the squawking beast when friends arrive.

Politics, Religion, and Dietary Choices

Of course, being present goes beyond being ready to greet your friends when they arrive and freeing yourself from the culinary chains of the kitchen; it’s allowing the dishes to lounge in the sink after dinner, staying cool when someone doesn’t use a coaster, engaging in conversation, but not trying to dictate it.

Which brings us to the delicate matter of dietary preferences and wine choices.

I have friends who insist they can’t handle gluten. A few who only drink white wine. A few others who only drink red. I have one or two stragglers still labouring under the misguided 90’s fat-free wisdom. They can not look at a wedge of brie without whipping out a calculator to measure the Points.

With all of these considerations in mind, a few days before the party, I send out a sample menu asking if there are any objections. If there are, I either change the item, or add another that will accommodate the objector better. As for drink pairings, I may be a sommelier by trade, but I’m not working my own party. I offer a red, a white, maybe a pink or bubbly depending on the occasion, and a welcome cocktail and allow guests to choose what they would like.

To insist a Shiraz devotee sip Chardonnay for the sake of my ego is anathema to my view of hosting. To educate a gluten-free friend on the benefits of heritage grains, just makes me a jerk. And to force-feed a fat-free friend carbonara seems cruel.

These are my friends and my guests and I want all of them to feel welcome and cared for in my home. And, as long as they remove their shoes, they will be.

What do you think? Do you have any set rules for guesting or hosting? I’d love to know.

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Thanks so much for reading. May your next party be nothing short of fabulous.

xo-Erin