When you have guests over for a fancy gathering, or you’re celebrating an important holiday, some families like to haul out china. Maybe it’s a family heirloom, or maybe it was a pricey wedding gift that you regret not exchanging for a KitchenAid mixer. Either way, the more guests you have, the more important this question becomes: can fine china go in the dishwasher? [More]
entertaining
Make Your Crock-Pots Hook Up With Each Other
By 11.12.13
We don’t want to accuse the nice folks at Crock-Pot of not consulting, say, Urban Dictionary or a person under forty before introducing their new product line. The “Hook Up™ Customizable Entertaining System” is intended for home dinner parties, after all. Maybe they did this with full knowledge that their product name is a synonym for “meaningless sex.” [More]
We Are Too Poor For Fancy Alcohol
By 2.2.10
The numbers are in for liquor sales in 2009, and last year had the smallest increase in sales since 2001, reports Bloomberg. What’s worse (if you own a high-end liquor company), sales shifted toward the products on the cheaper end of the spectrum, and people bought less at restaurants and other public places. But we’re not actually drinking less, it turns out–we’re just doing more entertaining at home. [More]
Make Your Own Playdough
By 5.17.09
Looking for a cheap way to entertain your kids or spice up a rainy day? Make your own playdough! The homemade stuff may not come in a shiny yellow play-doh container, but you probably have most of the ingredients in your cupboard already, and the concoction won’t smell or contain yucky toxins. Hit the jump for the recipe…
Vodka Is Pretty Much The Same No Matter What Brand You Buy
By 5.23.08
In what may have been the most awesome blind taste test ever, a BusinessWeek writer served his friends chilled shots of various brands of vodka to see whether there was any noticeable difference in taste. His argument was that vodka is a neutral spirit and by definition is nearly indistinguishable from one brand to the next—and that consequently the “brand story” (including country of origin) is really all that separates a Grey Goose drinker from a Ketel One alkie. To test this, he asked his subjects to pick their favorite brands from shots and mixed drinks.
Cheap Ideas For Holiday Parties
By 11.16.07
Kiplinger set itself three basic rules to follow for affordable holiday entertaining: “make it a team effort” by splitting hosting duties or having guests bring food, “borrow what you don’t have,” and ” be creative.” Following these rules, they came up with ten ideas for holiday get-togethers that even people on tight budgets can pull off. Here are the first three.
