There was a brief period in my life when I decided to host dinner parties. This differed vastly from the fifty-odd years during which I cooked food and either threw it on the table or carried to whichever room my family members were sitting once they decided they’d never again sit together at the kitchen table. But that’s a different story. This one isn’t about eating; it’s about dining. It all started with the more-or-less simultaneous discovery of Ina Garten’s cookbooks, the departure of my second husband, and the acquisition of a houseful of new furniture. I’d gone through “The Sweep,” which is what you get to do when everyone leaves home and you want to see floor all the way to the walls. Once new things were in place and I had complete control of the TV remote, I stumbled across the Food Network and Ina, who became my Food Goddess. Butter, cream, salt, more butter, and a bottle of wine. What could go wrong? So I practiced. Then I bought all the kitchen appliances she used and practiced some more. Cooking replaced horticulture, which had replaced bead weaving, in my history of obsessive hobbies. After practicing on my sister-in-laws, who asked for seconds, I decided I was ready to finally be a grownup and “have people over.” But first I had to learn about wine, because Ina said so. I ordered books about wine and memorized categories. I went to wine pairing dinners at restaurants and learned about what goes with what and when. I bought stemware for each type of wine. Before long, I owned three wrought iron wine racks filled to the tipping point and had more bottles shoved under the kitchen sink. By now I was getting the idea that wine is a serious and expensive hobby. I knew that eventually I was going to have to learn to drink the stuff. So I’d swirl my glass and say things like “This burgundy has undertones of pomegranate and pickle juice.” Privately I’d be thinking it tasted like carbolic acid. The only thing that was really good about wine, as far as I was concerned, was 1) it made roast beef taste better and 2) if I had a glass before the guests arrived I wouldn’t care if I’d burned the roast beef or not. The next thing to do, aside from buying more tableware, serving dishes, and linens was to actually invite people to dine at my house. However, Ina had taught me that you can’t just take their coats and purses, toss them on your bed, and make your guests sit at the table to eat. No, no. First you must take their coats and purses, toss them on your bed, and make your guests sit in the living room and fill up on appetizers. For that you need appetizer plates, appetizer-sized napkins, a large leather ottoman on top of which you place an oversized oval tray in which are balanced serving platters and little appetizer plates—plain white from World Market, Pottery Barn, Williams-Sonoma—take your pick. Oh, and appetizers. That’s when you’re supposed to serve champagne cocktails, wines suitable for whatever cheese, nuts, olives, savory pastries, and grapes you are forcing on the newcomers. Also cocktails. Remember the cocktails. They’re important. These were the days before Kaiser taught me the Latin word for anxiety. By the time my guests arrived, I’d have worked myself into a state of near panic. Why? Personally, I think it’s stage fright. Before my guests arrived, my hands would be shaking too much to pour the champagne cocktails into the skinny flutes, which left me with two choices. I could chug a glass of wine before they arrived, fill up the flutes and then pour them on the guests’ laps or skip the wine, not make myself shickered, and shake so badly I’d miss the flutes and pour the champagne down the drain. Those guests who wanted a real cocktail had to bring their own, because I hadn’t yet gotten around to buying non-wine alcohol other than the bottle of Glenfiddich I bought on my return from Scotland 15 years ago which still stands as a souvenir, half full, at the bottom of my pantry. I noticed that the male guests who liked cocktails and who mixed their own in my kitchen seemed to be able to also pour champagne into flutes. That was the magical formula. Always include a Cocktail Man in the guest list. From then on it didn’t matter if I started drinking before the guests arrived or not because I could sweetly ask for a little help with the little glasses and no one got hurt. Since they were so necessary to my culinary well-being, it occurred to me that it would be nicer if I provided the cocktail fixings for the Cocktail Men. That’s when I set out to acquire a Well Stocked Bar. What you have to know is that the only space for a liquor bar in the hallway I call my dining room is a 40 inch by 20 inch make-believe sideboard I had built into the wall when I realized I was never going to own the 40 foot by 20 foot dining room of my dreams with the carved mahogany sideboard. Place two wine racks on a 40 inch by 20 inch sideboard and that leaves you with very little room to stock a bar. Plus, I’d already concluded I was a waste of perfectly good wine and it would take more dinner parties that I have years left to go through a standard sized bottle of scotch, so I did the same with the bar as with the sideboard: I miniaturized. Every two weeks, after payday, I’d march into the liquor store next to my local Trader Joe’s and ask the little man behind the counter (who spoke very little English) for the smallest bottled of the finest quality liquor he had. It started with Gin because I didn’t know where else to start. “I’m going to stock a bar. A small bar. Gin is a good thing to have in a bar, right?” “Yes, lady. Gin is good.” “What is your best quality Gin?” “X or Y.” “What’s the smallest size you have?” “This.” “That’s too big. What’s smaller?” “Z. I have a small bottle of Z” “How much?” “Eight dollars.” “I’ll take it.” He put it in a small paper bag and out I went. Two weeks later, same scene, different dialogue. “People need Vodka for bars, right?” “Yes, lady.” “What’s the best smallest bottle of Vodka you have?” This went on until the little man was replaced by someone who had no sense of humor, but by then I’d not only filled up my mini-bar with bottles of cocktail fixings, I also owned a stainless steel Art Deco cocktail shaker, matching ice bucket, various crystal highball glasses, martini stemware, and a collection of glass stir sticks with tropical birds at their tops. Not only that, guests started bringing big bottles of fun stuff, such as giant-sized Kahlua, raspberry liqueurs, Prosecco, Cognac, and Schnapps. My bar fillethed over. Cocktail Men could mix their hearts out. Life was good. Small but good. Then I got sick and worn out. Ina lost her magical aura. I stopped cooking. No one came over. I dusted my liquor bottles once every two weeks for a couple of years. Finally, I packed it all up into big crates and hauled it off to the ballroom studio I attended. They served wine at dance parties. The liquors, racks, and other accouterments went home with my dance instructor. He served dinner parties. Or just drank. I took up sedatives. They worked better. They didn’t make me spill tea on my guests’ laps. After I bit, I tried having a real cocktail but it wasn’t as much fun. Mixed with my meds, it just made me turn gray and stop breathing. It was a real party downer. So lately when I get gussied up and want to look like an elegant old lady who knows her way around town I order a Cosmopolitan out loud and then whisper to the server “Virgin.” Martini glass, pink liquid, a slice of lime, and I fit right in. Plus, I get an extra dose of vitamin C from the cranberry juice. And I don’t have to go the hospital. What’s on the sideboard now? I’m glad you asked. A teapot. And a matching sugar bowl and creamer. On a fancy tray. Picks up the theme of the teapots that line all my shelves. I may not be able to serve you Creme de Cassis en Champagne when you come over now but I do brew a mean pot of Darjeeling.