Wine, check. Food, check. Music, check. Fun people, check.
What did you forget? Perhaps the teaching aids? Entertaining can be educational. After all, this is the time of the year for parties, and once you pass the Twister and Pin-the-Tail-on-the-Donkey stage, finding new ways to liven up a social gathering can be a little daunting.
But some here in the Merrimack Valley have discovered a new way to bring fun and focus to an event: holding a "tasting party."
"What is not to love about a party where you sample everything?" Denise Green of Kingston, N.H., asked.
At almost any party, guests talk, eat and drink. They would do the same at a tasting party with one important exception: It's also educational.
At a tasting party, guests can not only sample an amazing chocolate but learn where it comes from, how it was made, what makes it different from other chocolates, and why this substance seems to have such a universal and blissful effect.
"The point is having fun," said Cynthia Flahardy, a Newburyport chef who recently threw a tasting party. "You can be more casual with little tastes. The point is just making it a total sensory experience."
What did you forget? Perhaps the teaching aids? Entertaining can be educational. After all, this is the time of the year for parties, and once you pass the Twister and Pin-the-Tail-on-the-Donkey stage, finding new ways to liven up a social gathering can be a little daunting.
But some here in the Merrimack Valley have discovered a new way to bring fun and focus to an event: holding a "tasting party."
"What is not to love about a party where you sample everything?" Denise Green of Kingston, N.H., asked.
At almost any party, guests talk, eat and drink. They would do the same at a tasting party with one important exception: It's also educational.
At a tasting party, guests can not only sample an amazing chocolate but learn where it comes from, how it was made, what makes it different from other chocolates, and why this substance seems to have such a universal and blissful effect.
"The point is having fun," said Cynthia Flahardy, a Newburyport chef who recently threw a tasting party. "You can be more casual with little tastes. The point is just making it a total sensory experience."
While wine-tasting parties have been the rage for a few years, other types are becoming trendy. Leading the way is Dina Cheney, a Connecticut cooking instructor, who has written "Tasting Club." The book is like an instruction manual on the planning and execution of tasting parties, right down to worksheets for guests to mark down their impressions of what they are eating and drinking.
"People need a way to entertain, and they don't have time for dinner parties," Cheney said.
Bryant Lemire, manager of the Lanam (an acronym for Lawrence Andover North Andover and Methuen) Club in Andover, often hosts tasting parties for members. He usually caps the number of people who can attend to 50 for formal parties and 80 for more casual events.
"It's something different," Lemire said. "I think (members) enjoy the education. We try to bring in eclectic things that people don't know much about."
Tasting parties so far at the Lanam Club have featured wine, with a focus on a variety of topics including how to make wine, and Lemire intends to branch out to other types of tasting parties in the future.
"Chocolate we haven't experimented a lot with. That is something we will (likely) look into down the road," he said.
Flahardy, who is a personal chef, recently invited people to a tasting party she held at the home of friends Dolores and Richard Person in Newburyport.
Her ingredients for a successful event?
"It's about having great food, learning and having fun," Flahardy said.
For tasting parties, she often teams with her husband, Don, who is a wine expert. At the Newburyport party, he showed off wines he learned about on a recent trip to the Bordeaux region of France.
"Good food has to have good wine," Flahardy said. "It's a perfect marriage, in many ways."
At the Persons' party, she served pierogies, a seafood salad, pate and roasted grapes. Guests peppered the Flahardys with questions throughout the night: What's in this? Where does it come from? How do you do it?
The food got people talking, to the Flahardys and each other.
"It's very convivial; it's an easy way to make conversation," said Laurel Seneca of Newburyport, who attended the event. "It's great before the holidays."
"At a cocktail party, you are just there to talk to your friends," said Steve Coyle of Newburyport, another party guest. "This is an education."
Phyllis DiGennaro of Kingston, N.H., recently held a late Friday afternoon tasting party at her home. For her event, DiGennaro relied on products from Tastefully Simple, a line that includes everything from pretzel dips to brownie mixes and is sold from home parties, like Tupperware.
Hiring professionals, like Tastefully Simple or a personal chef, to prepare food for a tasting party is one way to reduce the amount of work that typically goes into entertaining.
"People get excited when they don't have to cook for a tasting party," Cheney said.
At DiGennaro's party, her neighbors and friends stocked up on food they tasted and loved - and learned about how to prepare and present it - while they socialized.
"It's a way for people to get together," she said. "It's social."
"I think it's fun," said one of DiGennaro's guests, Betsy Morin of South Hampton, N.H. "The food is good; there's a variety and a lot to choose from, but really it's the company."
The party, Morin said, gave her the chance to catch up with friends while sampling a variety of food.
"We are so busy with our lives, we never get to see people," she said.
"I think it's wonderful, especially on a Friday afternoon," Paula Iannuccillo of Amesbury said. "When you are working, you don't get out, and then you don't know about anything. Here, you get to eat and socialize at the same time."
