Entertaining
How to Keep Your Cool While Playing Host (It's Possible)
"When a guest starts cleaning, should I stop them or let them keep going?"—and other hosting etiquette questions, answered.
Should you ask your guests to bring something? How do you keep people out of the kitchen? How do you serve everything at the right temp? Feel like you've forgotten how to be a good host? (Same.) In our latest series, Be My Guest, a friendly expert takes on questions from our community and deftly puts fears to rest, suggesting all the ways in which we can all get back to hosting safely—and confidently. It is (almost) the holidays after all!
A few years back, I invited a handful of friends over for polenta and short ribs, the coziest meal I could think of on that chilly late-fall night. One of them asked if their then-girlfriend could come, and I said of course, the more the merrier, and then they told me that it was actually her birthday, and I said we’ll have a toast, and then she showed up, and let me know that actually, she was a vegetarian—so she wouldn’t be eating the main course that I’d been cooking for three hours, and I didn’t have an alternative planned. I was embarrassed and flustered—I should have asked! I’m a horrible host! And why didn’t she tell me! But her eyes got wide at the pot of bubbling, cheesy polenta on my stove, which she indicated would be her birthday present. We all ate well; the vegetarian and my friend are now happily married.
What’s the moral of this story? Maybe it’s that you should always have extra polenta hanging around. But it’s also a reminder that things don’t always go as you’ve planned them, and it’s important to stay flexible, and stay gracious. This week, I’m taking your questions on what to do when guests don’t exactly act how you expect them to, and how to keep your cool in the process. Just don’t forget the polenta.
Repeat after me: we do not turn guests away.
Uninvited guests are occasionally a happy surprise, and every so often a terror, but as the host, it is your job to roll with the punches and squeeze as much hospitality out of your sweet little heart as you can muster. So long as this uninvited guest has not done/will not do harm to anyone you’ve actually asked to come, find an extra chair, or plop them on the couch with a mismatched plate, and make them feel welcome. Most importantly, remember that tonight’s uninvited guest is tomorrow’s morsel of gossip. Tasty!
But if you’re particularly concerned—for issues of space or budget—feel free to make a direct but gracious note in your invitations that unfortunately, you won’t be able to accommodate extra guests.
Well, that depends. Is it good wine? Good enough to drink before or during dinner? Or is it too good for this particular party, which is populated by your rowdy college friends who just want to gossip over some gin and tonics?
Guests should be free to drink what they want, and hosts should serve what they want to serve. I’d worry less about whether it’s appropriate to serve or save a gifted bottle, and listen instead to what you want to do with it. Just explain to your guest what you’re doing and why. Say something like Oh this looks amazing, let’s open it now! Or this is incredible—if it’s okay with you, I’m going to save it for a special occasion. If they insist on opening it, don’t make a fuss: they’ll drink as much as they want to, and if you have some leftover plonk in the morning, you can save it for next week’s coq au vin.
We all have different relationships to the ideas of control, reciprocity, and obligation. Some of us are, as Dayna Tortorici called them in her brilliant essay on taking ownership of one’s cooking space, “Kitchen Alphas”. We need to be in control of all things, and will only accept the presence of others through our own delegation of tasks. Some of us feel like we need to go to confession if we are served dinner by a friend and don’t help clean up. Some of us are layabouts, and would rather be fed trays of supremed citrus than lift a finger to scrub or serve.
Hosting requires understanding these personality types—our own, and those of our guests. If you’re a hardcore alpha, don’t be afraid to gracefully refuse help. And remember that, ideally, no cleaning will be done until at least most of your guests leave (unless you’re doing it as a gentle gesture to let them know it’s 2 a.m. and time to go home). Of course, some people—your mom, maybe, or your best friend—might insist on helping. Often, these beloved people cannot be stopped. But remember that the rules of tidying depend on the formality of the event. If it’s a casual affair, it’s fine to let a few people clear plates. Just make sure that the whole party doesn’t feel like they’re being put to work scrubbing their cake off your plates.
Written by: Marian Bull
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20 Comments
I don't have a dish washer so clean up can take a while. If the party ends late, then I let it all wait till the next day. The mess will be there, spending time with family & friends is more valuable. I know some people say they can't go to bed knowing the kitchen is a disaster but it doesn't bother me.
Last weekend we hosted our first of three Thanksgivings with my husband's family, 15 people total. The next day I got up, put a pot of coffee on and spent 3 hours cleaning up and putting everything away & washing all the linens as I rehashed the party in my head. It was all perfect!
And I know you do it because you want me to do it at your house, because you have this idea that it’s rude for guests not to contribute. Like housemates in college, you cooked so I’ll clean up. No no no.
And when will people learn that a bouquet of cut flowers (unless they are from their very own garden) are not a good hostess gift since the host has to stop everything and find an appropriate vessel, cut the stems, arrange them, and then find a suitable place to display them) unless of course one has a staff to do all that. But if one has such a staff, presumably the house is filled with flowers already.
I generally stay. Sometimes I’m the only woman, or only woman under 75, who’s still at the table, and sometimes I’ve detected a little vibe of, “How rude not to pitch in.” Because, I think, there’s this idea of reciprocity. You do it at my house, even though I don’t want you to, and I’m supposed to do it at yours.
I would like to see the end of this idea.
I never open a guest's bottle of wine unless it was planned beforehand that someone was bringing a particular wine for dinner, or a guest explicitly asks for it. Any time I've opened one soon after it was brought, it sat untouched while guests indulged in other options.
There is only one guest I allow to help clear the table. Without asking, he instinctively knows when to move the dinner plates into the kitchen. And doesn't stack them! I trust no others.
Nobody cleans my kitchen except me and, silently gritting my teeth, my husband. I try to explain:
- I have to organize the kitchen before I can clean the dishes
- No offense, but I'll have to rewash anything you wash/dry
- Things don't get broken when I wash up the next morning.
After the last guest leaves is the time for us to gossip while we put away leftovers, I load/turn on the dishwasher and we let pans soak. I'm more of a tortoise than a hare but by noon everything is washed/dried and set on tea towels on the cleaned dining room table. Husband puts everything away at his leisure, aka immediately.
I actually enjoy the next day clean up. Plus, I won't have to go through the trash because someone scrapped a dessert folk into the bin!
As a guest, I always make the offer to help clean up and I always respect the choice of the host!
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