Party Rules

You don’t have enough ice.

Every time I throw a party there are only two things that worry me: that I’ll run out of food and that I’ll run out of ice. And those fears are intensified once a year, when I throw a big party for New Year’s Eve.

It’s tiresomely fashionable these days to complain about New Year’s Eve. It always seems forced, people say. It’s too close to Christmas, it’s too expensive to go out, it’s noisy and fake and inconvenient. To which I say: all the more reason to throw a really fun party and give your far-flung and disparate friends someplace to go. Those who want to stay home can stay home. Those who want to dress up and drink and meet new people and perch on the arm of a sofa can come to my house and mix it up in a happy and convivial way.

But that, of course, depends on two important details: enough food and enough ice.

Drinks, I have covered. If somehow I run out of bottles bought for this specific event, there are enough boxes of wine and discount-brand liquor bottles squirreled away here and there that it’s impossible anyone in my house will ever go thirsty, even in the event of some cataclysmic worldwide disaster or societal collapse, which is why I have them in the first place. (There’s no need to face The End without a little something to unwind with, is my feeling.)

And food — well, that’s always a complicated set of calculations to make. You have to estimate how many people will be there and where they’re coming from, which of your friends will attack the smoked salmon, which will ravage the shrimp bowl, which are cheese eaters, and which are perfectly happy with a little nibble here and there in order to stay upright after a few glasses of my recipe for Chatham Artillery Punch, which has been lethal, according to legend, since 1792.

But the truth is, food is never as important to guests as it is to the hosts. People throwing parties often tie themselves into knots arranging just the right hors d’oeuvres, buying expensive charcuterie and lining it up in sophisticated curves, spending themselves into penury with exotic cheeses and delicate fish eggs and piles of raw vegetables nobody eats.

Guests, in my experience, just want something filling and comfortable to eat. For years, I would order up large muffuletta sandwiches from Central Grocery in New Orleans and I’d stack them in wedges and that seemed to do the trick. This year, I went to the local Wegman’s for a couple of “family size” smoked salmons and two enormous wheels of Camembert, which I sliced in half horizontally and filled with spiced mango chutney and onion-and-bacon jam, respectively. Put the salmon out with lemon and condiments and bake the cheese until it’s gooey and no one goes hungry. Even though I worry, in the back of my mind, that there’s a chance I’ll run out of food, I know deep down it’s impossible.

Ice, on the other hand, is an indispensable utility player at any party. It keeps drinks cold in the glass, wine chilled in the bucket, beer cold in the cooler, punch crisp and (thankfully) diluted, and just the sound of it being scooped or crushed or shaken is about all the music a party needs to really get going. When close friends send last minute texts — On our way! What can we bring? — I always say, Ice! And I never regret it. My rule is: you think ten bags of ice are enough? They aren’t. Double it.

In fact, one of the great lessons I’ve learned after a few decades of throwing parties — especially slightly unruly ones on Big Occasions — is that I often worry too much about the details. I think too much about the food and the wine and not enough about what really makes a party great and memorable, which is a relaxed and worry-free host mingling with guests of all ages, industries, wallets, and backgrounds, making sure everyone gets introduced to everyone else.

There are hundreds of books and thousands of magazine articles dedicated to “elegant” and “sophisticated” entertaining — most of which just make people too nervous and intimidated ever to host a party of their own — but what’s more elegant than two partygoers, wobbly from the punch, dipping into the wheel of melted cheese? And what’s more sophisticated than a room full of people discovering how much they have in common with each other? My wish for all of us — you and me both — is more parties like that. And more ice.