Kousha Navidar: All right. Coming up, a new documentary tells the forgotten story of a historic Women's World Cup tournament that's in a little bit, but right after this, we're going to get the summer season and how to host parties and dinner parties. Katherine Lewin is the owner of Big Night, a local dinner party essential shop. She's going to come on to talk about her new book and we'll take your calls about how to do dinner parties well. Stay with us.

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Kousha Navidar: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Kousha Navidar. Thanks for being with us today. Even with the heat right now, how many of us will be hosting or attending a dinner party soon? Dinner parties are a staple of a New York summer. I love them, but planning a dinner party can be stressful. How many appetizers should I put out? Can I really make all this food in one night? What if the AC stops working? Do I need to get everybody some personal fans?

My next guest, Katherine Lewin, loves dinner parties and has some tips to help plan what she calls Big Nights. Lewin is the founder of Big Night, a dinner party essential shop in Greenpoint and the West Village. Now she's written a new book all about dinner parties and how to make sure the one that you're hosting this summer is the best of the season. The book is called Big Night: Dinners, Parties, and Dinner Parties. Katherine Lewin is with me in the studio to take your calls. Katherine, welcome to WNYC.

Katherine Lewin: I'm so happy to be here.

Kousha Navidar: You opened your store Big Night after the pandemic, first in Greenpoint and now in a second location in the West Village. What's the origin story of opening up a brick-and-mortar shop like that?

Katherine Lewin: We actually opened mid-pandemic in August of 2021. The origin story is that in the pandemic, I was watching people cooking more than ever. Remember when people were growing scallions and baking bread and cooking really elaborately because what else was there to do, really? It just struck me how much we were cooking and yet not able to gather and share those meals with people beyond our intimate pandemic pod.

I started thinking about dinner parties as one of those experiences we were going to be so excited to have once it was safe enough to do so. The idea for a dinner party shop was really something that came to me in that moment. Very long story short, it riled around in my head for a couple of months until I saw the storefront staring at me one day around the corner from my house and it just hit me like a lightning bolt. I called the broker's number on the window. Again, a long story, but the rest is history.

Kousha Navidar: That's wonderful. For the purposes of your store but also the book, how do you define a big night?

Katherine Lewin: A big night is any night or really moment, because we can also have big days, big lunches, that you choose to really take a moment to make feel like an occasion, to feel special. I think what's really important to me to stress is an occasion does not need to be a course dinner for 10 people sitting at your dinner table. It can be a Wednesday night. "Hey, we haven't seen each other in a while. Come over for takeout pizza. I'm going to buy a bottle of wine I'm excited about and make a simple salad." It's really about that intentional decision to gather people and make an occasion, even if the occasion is Wednesday night.

Kousha Navidar: The intent. It sounds like the intent.

Katherine Lewin: The intent is important.

Kousha Navidar: Intent and community. Speaking of intent and community, I feel like it's a great segue because listeners, we want to hear from you too. Are you hosting a dinner party soon? Are there any last minute questions that we, and by we, I mean Katherine can help to try to answer like how much ice should I have or what kind of appetizers should I serve my guests? Give us a call. Send us a text. We're at 212-433-9692. That's 212-433-WNYC.

If you're listening right now, are you somebody who likes to host dinner parties? If you are, what's your go-to dish that's super convenient, but also impresses your guests? That sounds really cool. What tips do you have to manage hosting stress that maybe you want to share with us? 212-433-9692. That's 212-433-WNYC. I just talked about managing stress, and I think this might be a block for a lot of people-

Katherine Lewin: Totally.

Kousha Navidar: -that want to have an intent, have a big night. Am I right that you identify as an introvert?

Katherine Lewin: I do. I am definitely an introvert who loves being around people, but the stress that you're talking about, part of that is social stress of like, "Okay, I'm hosting people in my home, which means I'm going to have them over for two or three good hours." For me, my back pocket solution for any social fatigue, shall we say, is something I like to call a social nap, which is the inevitable moment of any dinner party when I slink off quietly to my bedroom, shut off all the lights, and just lay horizontally for 10 minutes. That is the reset that sets me up to really put my best foot forward for the rest of the party. Big fan of the social nap.

Kousha Navidar: I once hosted a party recently last summer, actually, where one of my friends said I'm pretty tired. We just let him nap in our bedroom and then he came back and he was totally fresh. I wish that was more accepted at parties because it would help everybody just feel a little better, I think.

Katherine Lewin: Exactly. Especially in New York, people want to hang late. When you're hosting, first of all, you've put all this effort into your spread. Summer nights are long, the sun stays up, and sometimes, the party is going for five, six hours. It's completely understandable that one might want to take a little TO, so don't be afraid to social nap.

Kousha Navidar: Normalize the social nap, everyone. Another stressful part of hosting is the cooking, especially if you try to do it all in one day. How can you manage making dishes ahead of time to ease the hosting on the night out? Any tips for that?

Katherine Lewin: Yes. One of my biggest pieces of advice is as much as you can do in advance, do it. To that end, in the book, almost every single recipe has a little make-ahead tip that explains which element of the recipe, if not all of it, can be made ahead and how far in advance. Beyond the cooking, I'm also a really big fan of something that I call the hosting timeline. This is basically a schedule of everything that needs to get done before your guests arrive.

It requires you to take a moment to really plot out your schedule and keep yourself honest of, am I going to be able to do all the things I need to do for this party, whether it's cooking, grabbing ice, mixing cocktails, but also all of the mundane things that maybe get thought of last minute like, "Oh my God, there's dust everywhere, or I haven't vacuumed, or oh, it's five minutes until everyone arrives and I haven't showered." Maybe that's just me.

Really setting up a schedule, and I like to handwrite it makes me feel very grounded, that gives myself the checkpoints of, "Okay, by one o'clock, hopefully, I've made the potato salad. By 1:30, I've decided, what dishes are going on the table, what's going to be served from the bar," just giving myself checkpoints to check in and make sure we're on schedule for a stress free party.

Kousha Navidar: I love it. Listeners, do you have tips? We want to go to your calls. Give us a call about how to host dinner parties well, what your go-to recipes are. We're talking about the book, where is it right here? We're talking with Katherine Lewin, of course, who's the founder and owner of Big Night and the name of the book, which I have right in front of me is Big Night: Dinners, Parties, and Dinner Parties. We're here to take your calls and texts. 212-433-9692. Let's go to Amy in Brooklyn. Hey, Amy, welcome to the show.

Amy: Hey, so glad to be on.

Kousha Navidar: Welcome.

Katherine Lewin: Hi, Amy.

Amy: Hey. One of our dinner party favorite dishes to make is paella.

Kousha Navidar: Okay.

Katherine Lewin: Fancy.

Amy: Paella is one of the greatest thing. One top meal serves 8 to 10 plus people, easy to prep, easy to coordinate, and a big showstopper for your guests.

Katherine Lewin: I was just going to say, what a central moment, what a centerpiece of the party.

Amy: Right. So easy to curate around. I couldn't agree with you more about a schedule, trying to set the table early, who doesn't break something five minutes before all your guests show up and have to pull out all sorts of things. Absolutely writing down what you're going to make for your meal, your appetizers, and setting the table is just such a big thing to get out of the way and sets the tone as well.

Katherine Lewin: Totally agree.

Kousha Navidar: Yes, Amy, thank you so much, and Amy's buddy who's there as well. Thank you so much both for calling. Let's go to Haleem in South Brunswick, New Jersey. Hey Haleem, welcome to the show.

Haleem: Hello. This is the first time I ever called. I bought a new Tesla, so I started looking for stations and apparently, I found you and I clicked it. I'm happy to talk to you.

Kousha Navidar: Nice, welcome. Well, I hope your charging is going well. What's your tip?

Haleem: All right. The tip is that now let's say you have a casserole meat pie, whatever it is, but you want to make something colorful and easy. My recommendation is to make a salad with the mango on top of it. Imagine you have a circle of cucumbers and the lettuce, which is green color, right? The green, a little bit white is there. Then you put sliced mangoes, very chopped, not sliced, I would say chopped mango, and put it in the middle and keep a cilantro at the very, very one in the middle. If you look at it, it's like a colorful dish, which is easy to make. It'll definitely in waiting for the guest.

Katherine Lewin: I love that. It's like a rainbow right on your table. It sounds amazing.

Kousha Navidar: Yes. Haleem, thank you so much. I love mangoes as well, and I just want to point out thank you for pulling over and not driving while you call. I really appreciate that. I hope you have some great parties this year. Since we've gone into food. I want to be sure that I ask you from some of the recipes in your book. In the book, you write about snack spread essentials, which means ingredients for appetizers before any larger meal is served. I want to run through some of those right now. The first on the list is great olive oil. How can high-quality olive oil take everything to the next level there?

Katherine Lewin: High-quality olive oil can be the difference between a dip that you buy in the grocery store and a dip that you serve at a dinner party that wows everybody. I truly believe even a store-bought dip can be an incredible dish if you put it in a beautiful bowl and drizzle it with delicious olive oil and crack a little bit of black pepper on top.

Kousha Navidar: Do you make your own olive oil? How do you try to go about it? Because that takes a long time.

Katherine Lewin: I wish I did, but I do have a store that stocks some really fantastic olive oils. With that said, I have a rotating cast in my pantry. One that is a little bit butterier in the mouth, maybe great for drizzling on pastas, one that's super alive and peppery and wild tasting that I love to drizzle on salads or dips. Olive oil, not just for cooking, it's really your finishing secret weapon.

Kousha Navidar: Yes. There was another part of the book that really surprised me was your discussion on tinned fish. What can one do with tinned fish for an app?

Katherine Lewin: So much. The world of tinned fish is large. If you're somebody who is really into sardines or anchovies, honestly, those can go straight on a snack board. Just pop the tin. Make sure you have a beautiful small fork in there for people to grab and people can make their own toast with butter and anchovy. Maybe you're after something a little bit more dip-like, I love to take a couple of tins of trout and whip together with some mayo, again olive oil, pepper, chili pepper, and you have a really quick delicious trout dip.

Kousha Navidar: That sounds really good. Like we said before, easy to manage. Easy, yes.

Katherine Lewin: Easy. That's the key.

Kousha Navidar: Listeners, we're talking to Katherine Lewin about her new book, Big Night: Dinners, Parties, and Dinner Parties. We're here to take your calls and your texts on some strategies that you have for hosting successful dinner parties or any party with intent like Katherine says. Give us a call, send us a text, 212-433-9692. Let's go to Eric in Maplewood, New Jersey. Hi, Eric, welcome to the show.

Eric: Hi.

Kousha Navidar: Eric, hi.

Eric: We throw an annual Swedish Midsummer party. It's the first Saturday after the first day of summer here in Maplewood. This year, we're expecting about 50 people.

Katherine Lewin: Amazing.

Kousha Navidar: Wow.

Eric: My wife and I do all the cooking. I make seven different flavors of aquavit.

Katherine Lewin: Wow.

Eric: We do Swedish shrimp salad, potato salad. I cure my own gras blocks and Swedish summer strawberry cake. My wife makes limpa, which is a Swedish rye bread and we do it every summer.

Katherine Lewin: That sounds incredible. How long have you been having this party?

Eric: Trying to remember how long. About eight years now I've been doing it.

Kousha Navidar: Wow. Eric, thank you so much for that call. 50 people is a lot. Katherine, do you have any advice for things to be sure you do when that number starts to go beyond 5, 10 people?

Katherine Lewin: What I'm impressed by listening to this is the breadth of dishes that we're talking about because for 50 people, that is a lot of different food and the quantities are high. My thing is, once the number for a dinner party gets over, I'd say 12 people, especially in a New York City apartment, I like to transfer to a snack table, a do-it-yourself snack table rather than seating people around a table. Just because with that number you're going to enjoy yourself more and be able to mix and mingle better if everybody is in control of when they're eating, how they're eating, and we're all gathering around the table as opposed to sitting down far away from each other trying to eat the right thing at the right time.

Kousha Navidar: What do you do if you live in a small apartment and you still want people to come over and you're not sure how many people you can fit in? Even five people seems like too many. Do you have strategies for dealing with small apartments?

Katherine Lewin: We live in New York City, it comes with the best things and it comes with the challenges of a tiny apartment and we just need to embrace that. That means that some people are going to be sitting on the floor, some people are going to be sitting at a coffee table. Some people maybe will get a prime spot at the dinner table. What matters is that we're together and we're enjoying the food. It's not so much about does everyone have a picture perfect dinner party, tablescape in front of them. It's like, let's take advantage of every corner of this apartment.

Kousha Navidar: I love listening to you how you talk about just normalizing and managing expectations and decreasing the barriers to entry, normalize the timeout, the nap, normalize the the tiny apartment.

Katherine Lewin: Yes. I think we're also used to seeing these like picture perfect Pinterest perfect tablescapes and spreads on the internet on Instagram, and listen, if you're the kind of person who gets so much joy from making one of those picture-perfect tablescapes, then you do that because that love and creativity is going to be felt by your guests. If you're somebody for whom a perfectly manicured table is not where you thrive and find joy, then put your energy into something else and everybody will have more fun for it.

Kousha Navidar: Speaking of where to put your energy, something I heard from Eric that I wanted to touch on was, he said he and his wife both host this and we've been talking so far like what you as an individual can do to host a party. Let's say you're hosting it with multiple people, a partner, roommates, whatever, any advice on how to divide responsibility or thinking about how to tackle the party together?

Katherine Lewin: I am a really big fan of asking for help and delegating. I think another preconceived notion we have in our heads is that the person who's hosting is the grand entertainer who's going to open the door and everyone's going to walk in and it's all going to be perfect. I really rely on my guests and my friends to have a hand and I will ask specifically for what I need.

If I'm the one who's come up with the menu and the center dish then I'm thinking, okay, can someone else bring a supporting cast? Have I thought about the vegetable? Do I need to delegate that? Have I thought about who's picking up the maybe boring stuff like the ice or maybe the ice cream that's going to go with dessert? I have no problem assigning people to specific tasks because I think everybody wants to feel like they're part of it, and it also gives the party a really nice and relaxed vibe when everybody has had a little bit of a hand in it.

Kousha Navidar: Yes. Let's go to Molly in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Hey, Molly, welcome to the show.

Molly: Hey, thanks for having me. I have two questions. One of them was about inspiration for a creative rut, but I actually feel like you've very much covered that with just recipes and hearing about other people's parties. I definitely want to score an invite to that Midsummer party.

Katherine Lewin: Same.

Kousha Navidar: Yes.

Molly: Instead I'd like to ask about time management. I am one of those hosts that you come over, you're going to have an amazing dinner, but my kitchen's going to be an absolute mess and I might still be making potatoes and there might be, there's just stuff everywhere. If you have any tips about time management strategies, that would be great. Then my other question is about social dynamics. Inviting a mix of people to a dinner party, maybe some of them are your close friends, maybe some of them are new coworkers, is that a matter of seating strategically? What are your tips for lubricating good social interaction?

Kousha Navidar: Oh, great questions, Molly. Thanks so much. What do you think?

Katherine Lewin: I'm going to start with the second one. If it's a small enough group, I'm actually really a fan of a seating arrangement and place cards, which is an old-fashioned take, but I love to play matchmaker with who's going to sit next to whom and think about who might really enjoy meeting each other. I also think place cards are a really great way to immediately make someone feel like, "Oh, I have a place at this table, this feels nice that someone thought of my name and where I should sit."

Then also to the point of giving people opportunities to meet one another, I am also a really big fan of setting up some kind of bar at a dinner party. A bar could be a martini bar, a bar could be a spritz bar, a bar could be a BLT bar. Maybe that's the centerpiece of what you're cooking. I love to create a moment for people to put together their own drink or bite completely on their own, choose their own adventure, give them the tools to make that perfect spritz or martini, but let them do it.

I think that also gives people an opportunity to be gathered around one place thinking like, "Okay, what's going to go in my martini? What's going to go in yours?" It creates a very interactive moment for people to talk to one another.

Kousha Navidar: Molly, I know that you had asked a second question as well, but since we're on social dynamics, if it's all right, I'd love to hop to another caller who's got a similar train of thought here. I want to hear from Julian in Northville, New Jersey. Hi, Julian, welcome to the show.

Julian: Hi. Thank you. My question has to do with someone who asks at the party, what can I do to help? I remember my father used to say, those who want to help help those who don't want to help ask.

Katherine Lewin: Wow, I love that. If someone is asking, I will tell them, and the answer is probably, would you mind helping me at the very end of the night just do a little bit of cleanup? You know what, they can opt out of that. If they head home early, then that's their way of saying like, well, I asked. I do think people want to be helpful and might just feel a little bit awkward as to like, how do I insert myself? I also think with most dinner parties, there's an opportunity to earmark in advance the things that you think somebody else could handle.

Maybe if you're hosting brunch, somebody can be juicing the oranges. Maybe if you're hosting dinner, somebody could be setting out the rolls on the table. Little things that you can just say to yourself, someone else can handle this, and I will assign it to the first person that asks.

Kousha Navidar: It reminds me of part of your book, which is the 13 hosting rules that you live by. We can't go through all 13, but in your mind, what are a few of the most important hosting rules that may not be as obvious to you?

Katherine Lewin: I think number one, and we've touched on this a little bit, is you do not have to serve dinner in the formal sense to have a dinner party. That's very important to me. Again, that can be a snack table, it can be a paella night is a dinner, but it's also like a paella party and that central moment of that party is the paella less about the seated formality of a dinner. That's really important to me. Anything can be judged, that speaks to what we were talking about earlier about, you know what if you don't have time to make your own dip, buy it at the store and just put it in your fanciest bowl, give it a really nice sprinkle of something fresh like olive oil or lemon juice, and you're good to go.

Kousha Navidar: Let's go to Donna in North Bellmore, Long Island. Hey, Donna, welcome to the show.

Donna: Hey. Katherine, I can't wait to get your book.

Katherine Lewin: Thank you.

Donna: I host our movie group once a year. We're 15 to 20 people, we function like a book club and organization. I have it all written out, I'm doing the same thing almost every year. I set up small card tables because I don't want people dripping my chicken Marbella on my good furniture. They're all set up, the dishes are out and I make two dishes that are crowd-pleasers. One is from the old Silver Palate Cookbook, it's a marinated chicken, and you could serve at room temperature. It could sit in the oven. It's olive oil, vinegar, real easy stuff.

Then the other thing is frosty tofu that I invented, and it's made with tofu, mayo, and mustard. These are carnivores, but I can't not serve that dish. They're two easy dishes. I make rice and then as you said, people volunteer and they augment with side dishes and desserts, and it's a factory that flows.

Katherine Lewin: I am so wanting to know more about the tofu, and I also just want to say that you touched on a really great tip, which is food that can be at room temperature and sit by itself and not have to be babysat is such a good play for basically any dinner party.

Kousha Navidar: Donna, I would also like to know more about this tofu. Please elaborate.

Donna: I had this on my, one of my first dates with the love of my life 25 or 30 years ago at a vegetarian place in the village, and I just copied it. I drain the tofu, I cut it in half, and then I do quarters. The dressing is a mayo and mustard and curry powder, basically those three. Then we thin it with a little bit of almond milk or soy milk, or if you use regular milk, so it's like a drippable marinade. Then I coat the pieces in the mustard and mayo stuff. Then I layer it and the great thing about this is it doesn't have to be exact. Then I sprinkle dried cranberries and chopped up onions that I microwave for like a minute, and then I put it in the casserole dish top and bake it at 350 to 375 for about 35 minutes.

Kousha Navidar: Oh, then you got it.

Donna: I have to tell you, serve, and I use rice for both of them. I'm glad it's a tofu recipe that carnivores love.

Kousha Navidar: Donna, thank you so much for that call, for that tip, for that story, that was lovely. We really appreciate it. I'm looking at the clock we have like, just less than a minute left here, Katherine, just wondering for you, why do you ultimately think it's important for us to gather and throw dinner parties like you imagine in your book?

Katherine Lewin: I think dinner parties are a place where time kind of stops for a minute in a way that it doesn't when we're out and about on the town in one of New York City's amazing restaurants. Those nights are special, but being able to bring people into your home where nobody's worried about what are we going to order and how are we going to pay the check and where are we going next? It really makes for a magical evening where people can spread out and relax and spend time really connecting.

Kousha Navidar: Katherine Lewin is the founder and owner of Big Night, a dinner party, essential shop with locations in Greenpoint and the West Village. She was here to discuss her new book, Big Night: Dinners, Parties, and Dinner Parties. Check it out if you want some tips, not just for good things to make, but good things to do to help you have a successful party with intention. Two people, 10 people, 50 people if you're celebrating Midsummer, who's to say? Katherine, thanks so much for joining us.

Katherine Lewin: Thanks so much for having me.

 

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