Tag Archives: Jack Staub

Rules to Host By

ENTERTAINING

Somewhere along the way, the dinner party got away from us. Time’s come to reel it back in and appreciate it for what it is: a safe harbor in a chaotic world.

No one remembers the table setting—or the food, for that matter—after a couple of cocktails.

 

The dinner party is a deceptively simple affair: friends, drinks, dinner and dessert. Really, that’s all there is to it. Yet, we consistently overthink it, ruining our evening and, usually, our guests’. Why? Because deep down, we want to impress our friends, even the lifelong ones who love us unconditionally. Sometime during the course of the planning, we lose our bearings and start to think that they’re expecting signature cocktails and elaborate, exotic meals. The reality is, they just want to spend a few hours together. We’re all so busy anymore; simply sharing time has become the most intimate affirmation of a friendship.

That said, don’t throw a few almond butter-and-pomegranate jam sandwiches on a platter and call it a night. This isn’t lunch, and we’re not six. To help us strike a balance between afterthought and overkill, we tapped our friend Jack Staub, who, as a founder of the Hortulus Farm Foundation and a friend to many, has hosted more parties at his Wrightstown estate than he could ever hope to remember. Here, his four rules for pulling off the perfect dinner party.

It’s not about the food
It’s about the ease with which you greet and eat. Buy some steamed lobsters, toss together a salad from the garden and throw in a loaf of garlic bread. I’ve even picked up a bake-at-home thin-crust pizza with some seasonal toppings on a few occasions. Finish up with a bowl of fresh cherries or peaches and an excellent cheese or a store-bought pie and ice cream. The point is: Keep it fresh, delicious and, above all, simple so that you (and your guests) can concentrate on having a good time.

Have it all done beforehand
No one wants to see you stressing in the kitchen. This time of year especially, room-temperature meals are your savior. Roast a pork loin. Poach some salmon filets or chicken breasts. Or grill a steak. Serve the pork with a mango salsa and the chicken, salmon and steak with a homemade green sauce. Roast some asparagus. Make a potato, pasta or tabbouleh salad. Set them out on a buffet and cover with plastic wrap. Relax, unwrap and enjoy.

Know what your friends drink
I’m a huge champion of the full bar. Enough of this, “May I pour you a glass of a very insouciant chardonnay?” stuff. Certainly, have a serviceable white, red and even a rosé on hand, as well as some beer. But don’t neglect the five basic liquor groups: vodka, gin, scotch, bourbon and rum. Make sure you’re stocked up on tonic, seltzer and cranberry and orange juice, too. And lemons and limes. Or, did someone say margarita night?

Spread the love
Yes, people need to eat. But in this chaotic, nonsensical world, what people need most is to connect with something comforting and sustaining. Laugh a lot. Hug as much as you can. The most important thing is to gather your friends about you and give them a space and few moments of genuine calm, security and affection. The miracle is that those are the very things that will sustain you, too.

Build a Better Backyard Garden

DIY

A few tips to help you land a bumper crop and a plot that’ll be the envy of your neighbors.

44890676_mlAfter last summer, there’s a lot to feel confident about. The peppers, cucumbers and tomatoes grew like gangbusters. So much so that at a point, you could have opened your own CSA. But the squash went awry and suffocated the beets. And the deer got to the corn. Again. Gardening can be as frustrating as it is fulfilling. Even when you do everything right, a new variable enters the equation—a plague of bunnies, a historic heat wave—and undoes months worth of hard work. This summer will be different, though. Before we plant a single seed, we turned to the foremost authority we knew for advice on how to build our best backyard garden yet. Jack Staub spends his winters lecturing and writing—his seminal 2013 book, Private Edens—Beautiful Country Gardens (Gibbs Smith), is all the inspiration you really need—and his springs and summers tending to his Wrightstown estate, Hortulus Farm, one of the most influential (and photographed) public gardens in the country. Here, Staub offers a few pointers to help fortify your own and ignite a Pinterest frenzy. —Scott Edwards

Follow the sun  The location of your plot needs to be a priority. If you tucked it in a far corner of the yard because it was out of the way or next to the compost pile, don’t expect to be rewarded beyond the convenience. A vegetable garden needs sun, and lots of it—half a day’s worth at least.

Dig a barrier  There’s nothing more heartbreaking than finding your row of infant lettuces nibbled to the soil. Fencing is essential, but it’s not the be-all, end-all. Rabbits tend to burrow into a garden more than they jump into them. The solution: Dig a 12-inch trench around the perimeter and pack it with stout wire grid stapled to the bottom rail of the fence.

Raise your game  Raised beds pack a whole slew of advantages. Not insignificantly, they push your garden within closer reach. They also: allow you to amend freely, heat up faster in the spring and drain better than a conventional garden, clearly delineate path from bed so you never compact your soil or stamp on your seedlings, make the garden a far prettier idea. Your beds should be six to 12 inches tall and no wider than a couple of feet so that you can easily reach the middle.
Refresh the soil  With the exception of legumes, vegetables will deplete the soil’s nutrients over the growing season. Start by filling your beds with some top-shelf topsoil. Mix in some bagged manure next. Then, if you’ve got a compost pile, fold it in. If not, find a bagged equivalent. The compost goes in at the start and finish of every garden season. And this entire process should be repeated in the fall.

Build up, not out  Constructing trellises and tuteurs out of timber and bamboo will not only add valuable square footage without enlarging your garden’s footprint, it’ll create an entirely new plane to entice the eye. That they’re perfect for the support and cultivation of the vining and climbing varieties of vegetables, like beans, peas, cucumbers, squash and tomatoes, is icing.

Keep them moving  The legume, as I mentioned, is the only vegetable family that adds nutrients to the soil. Some are relatively benign, but solanums (tomatoes, eggplant) and brassicas (broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts) will actually create viruses in the soil if they’re planted in the same spots season after season. A good rule of thumb: Rotate your crops every three years.