Pleasure of Your Company Cookbook

Additional Details

Description: "The dinner party," writes Molly O'Neill, "has always been a pageantry of image, a set piece in which host and hostess delineate precisely how they wish to be perceived by the world." Even in a diet-obsessed, time-pressed world, the urge to wow dinner guests continues unabated. But how can you have it all without losing your mind? 

With menus, game plans, and 150 recipes, O'Neill charts the waters of a new era in American home entertaining, with style, substance, and wit. 

She distills the fears and aspirations of anyone who would entertain into five characters who reconcile their trepidations and their grand desires with the realities of modern life. Meet Mr. D., me Manhattan caterer, mourning the demise of baby vegetables and high profits; Johanna, a recovering hostess with the mostest; and Nan, so daunted by recipes and health concerns that she has developed acute cook's block. 

"Cooking for company is either a challenge or a chore; it depends how you look at it," writes O'Neill. "Imaginative concepts and stylish, reliable recipes can help turn the chore into a challenge. Clear forethought can turn the challenge into a pleasure. In nearly a hundred conversations, the group got to the pleasure part." 

This romp through changing social mores is a guide to everything from backyard barbecues to orchestrating a sit-down meal, from engineering brilliant conversation to accommodating the dietary constraints of modern guests. 

Part novel, part cookbook, part self-help, part social satire, The Pleasure of Your Company is the rare book about home entertaining that manages to be both amusing and a practical guide for the novice as well as the experienced hostess. 

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Condition: Good condition.