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In recent years, outdoor living rooms have become quite the rage.  How appealing to be sitting outside enjoying a garden even when there is a nip in the air.  Despite its appeal, pure outdoor entertaining in Dallas is typically a spring or fall event.  The mere thought of outdoor entertaining past mid-June becomes an apprehension for any hostess, unless there is an atypical cold spell, or your friends enjoy spending time in the pool.  Nonetheless, we harbor visions of Hamptons-style outdoor parties overlooking the beach and ocean, or farm tables in Provence filled with great food and wine, or chic parties overlooking hillside vineyards in Napa.  With 100 degree Dallas summer evenings, we just have to make due and put imagination to work.

Think cool visions.  The folks at Paper and Chocolate can help with a selection of summer-themed invitations.  Perhaps start with an invitation featuring sea shells and carry the theme through.  Then incorporate shells into the table décor.  If you are lucky enough to have a seashell collection to use as part of the centerpiece, the theme easily starts to materialize, or drop by Nicholson Hardie to pick up some of theirs.  For the serious shell collector, you might even consider the silver enhanced sea shells at Madison, or some of the serious collections we saw at Ceylon & Cie.  Perhaps you will have excuses to add to your collection.  With luck, depending on the layout of your home, you can position your indoor party, within view of a pool, looking out at a festive table set with sparkling votives or small lanterns under a market umbrella.  Coral or seashell-embroidered pillows on the pool furniture would be an extra touch.

Another image-maker is the generous use of colorful and always festive Japanese lanterns in your trees.  Repeat the colors inside on a table with garden-like centerpieces and jewel-colored mats and napkins.  Another look we have envisioned came after a visit to the Wisteria Outlet.  We were charmed by the absolutely beautiful Indian patchwork quilts, embroidered in pastel colors.  At give-away prices, we could imagine them as table clothes set with chic white or pastel china, pastel napkins and pale flowers from the garden or the florist.  We would hope for another use of the quilts in the future.  Wisteria also has colorful Indian textiles that could serve the same purpose.

We have a few thoughts to improve the panache of casual summer entertaining.  We love the designs of Caspari paper products.  They add definite style for use at picnics and portable gatherings, but, with the availability of fabulous melamine tableware in so many designs, outdoor and casual dining has taken on a new and more elegant look.  Plastic melamine or Mottahedeh tin is especially important when casual entertaining includes children. We first saw the Mottahedeh tin plates last year at Madison in Highland Park Village and wrote about it in our 2010 June newsletter, Prepping for Father's Day.  Since then, plastic and tin casual tableware has popped up everywhere – at Nicholson Hardie, at the Horchow Collection, The Ivy House and St. Michael's Women's Exchange to name only a few places.

Cool Drink and Food

To beat the heat, play down the wine and liquor.  Perhaps you can briefly start in your garden with citrus, low alcoholic drinks to set the outdoors scene.  Every food magazine this summer has featured fruit-flavored drinks photographed in a drink dispenser, the seeming need of the moment.  In advance, check up with the local mixologists. We love the new term "mixologist," now being used at several top-tier restaurants around town. We will have to take a tour and meet some of them – and gather their suggestions for the best summer drinks.  The bustling new Marquee Grill in Highland Park Village and the Dragonfly restaurant at the Hotel Za-Za are frequently mentions. Try a few and see what you like.  We have also loved the Mojito classes being held weekly as La Duni's various locations.  Invite a friend to join you for a class – another cool outing.  The end result is to serve something light and refreshing to your guests and, hopefully, introduce them to something new. Saveur Magazine, one of our favorite sites, has a new listing of cool and colorful summer drinks. A link is attached.

Serve a menu that is cool as well as delicious.  A tomato and dill soup, using the area's fabulous local tomatoes, poached salmon with chilled haricots verts, and local fruits with Pacuigo or Pinkberry gelato will all be refreshing and can be prepared ahead to keep the hostess at the dinner table with the guests and not in the kitchen. If there are children involved, and they want to eat poolside, with expert supervision at the pool, hamburgers and watermelon may fit the occasion and the setting.

 

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