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YUMMY ENTERTAINS
Posted 06.15.08 by annajohnson
BABY SHOWERS & BLESSING WAYS; LOVELY WAYS TO MOTHER THE MOTHER
Baby shower’s, like bridal showers, are supposed to be a chick thing. So of course the first thing Yummy should do is invite ALL the men she knows and change the order of events to make this gathering fresh and meaningful. The focus on “stuff” at baby showers makes them physically and emotionally static. What sensible male (or sassy female) would want to linger in a room full of seated women opening boxes of baby clothing in a gooey hush? Your shower needs to be as personal, sensual and relevant to you as a private ritual, a small dinner or a most intimate celebration with nothing to impinge on your joy or impose on your peace.
THEMES AND NIGHTMARES
More often than not, good taste is sacrificed to sentiment in the traditional shower, with the decorations and palette given themes of infantile or even “wifely” domestic accessories. Oh dear. Tripping down the shower aisle at Party Central, I found miniature baby bottles which were too big for a doll and too small for a baby. Landfill! And when I logged onto a gaggle of specialty baby shower sites, I found lists of chipper games that included blind-folded baby food tasting, and invitations for grown men to dress in diapers. There were also tips on using pacifiers as napkin rings and stringing a laundry line across the middle of the room to hang the gifts from. Why not hoist up a pastel colored noose or serve Prozac with the party favors while you’re at it? Baby showers still follow many coy, suburban mid-century conventions such as featuring storks on the invites or decorating the room with baby blocks, pink ribbons and doves. In their day, such ritualistic gestures must have had some whacky charm but they’ve been diluted, even neutered, by commercialism. To make this important gathering touching, you need to add your own witty spin. And warmth.
START WITH COLOR
As a hostess I would be tempted to choose a bright soft color theme like sunshine yellow, lavender, or sky (as opposed to baby blue). Against this backdrop, fresh flowers in slightly deeper shades (sunflowers, peonies, wild garden roses) look strong.
CHOOSE SAUCY FLOWERS—NO DAISIES ALLOWED!
Choose blooms that paint a portrait of the woman. If she loves orchids at her dinner parties, why have daisies at her baby shower? If fresh tropical fruits are in season, why not make cornucopia pyramids?
SERVE GROWN-UP FOOD
This is not a toddler party, so choose food that is high on nutrients, flavor and flair: smoked salmon on pumpernickel, watercress and avocado salad, goat cheese tartlets, dim sum and fresh edamame. Theme the menu around the favorite food of the Yummy being honored (Mexican, Italian, Vietnamese) and then make very quirky concessions to pregnant food cravings. One amusing decorative touch could be a large row of jarred pickles lining the length of the table…ice-cream and peanut butter cups optional. With nutrition in mind, decorate a dark chocolate cake (dark chocolate is the healthy one) using fresh blackberries, raspberries and strawberries bursting both with color and anti-oxidants and folic acid.
SELECT THE RIGHT SETTING
To take the stress off Mama, try to hold the event in anyone’s home but hers, or in a small private room at a restaurant. A shower picnic is a romantic notion but lacks the formality of focus. Who’s going spoil the pregnant woman when they’re busy chasing toddlers with chicken drumsticks in their fists?
Another alternative is to take the shower to a day spa and offer a menu of body treats to choose from. Acknowledging that these are her last days for self-indulgent sensuality seems far more useful than bombing the lady with Oshkosh overalls. Whatever the setting of your shower, make it intimate enough to do the one thing most critical to the day: telling stories and encouraging the new mother with strength, comfort and wisdom.
DON’T PLAY GAMES
Replace the mawkish, or faintly embarrassing practice of party games by having each guest instead offer a deeply personal piece of advice, or an inspiring anecdote—no hospital horror stories please!! Some might choose to prepare a special book for the baby, offering insights, recipes or whimsical musings for many years to come. with a handful of pages for each year of the baby’s life for a decade, but be sure to forewarn the guests so they can prepare something more sage than the lyrics to “It’s a wild world”. Others might bring some CDs of lullabies and sing one or two for fun. You’d be amazed how many modern women don’t know the words to “Amazing Grace” or even “Summertime”. I memorised every Bob Dylan lyric ever written but had to learn “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star!”
BE TIME SENSITIVE
Choose your time well. Often an expectant mother in her last weeks of confinement will begin to close ranks and become more solitary. She may have just wrenched herself away from full-time work and need respite. Try to hold the shower a good six to eight weeks before her due date; that way she’ll see it as a pleasure and not a source of pressure.
GIVE USEFULLY
Enough frozen home-made soup for one month. A dozen new towels tied with a big grosgrain bow. A post-natal yoga DVD and a yoga mat to go with it. A selection of clothes by age, from newborn to 18 months, cleverly divided among your friends. A lovely cashmere wrap for the hospital. A very posh eye cream and a selection of fresh floral sprays (lavender, rose and orange water). A roomy but elegant robe for receiving relatives. Ankle-length Ugg boots and matching baby Uggs for fun. All of these gifts will be deeply appreciated by a woman who can’t see beyond her huggie pile. For the best line-up of gifts, have guests confer with each other or better still, chip in for something substantial like a pram or crib…
POOL YOUR RESOURCES
Savvy Charlotte, the French vixen who hosted my Brooklyn shower, pushed for a Bugaboo as my main gift. She had successfully corralled her many friends into buying her a navy blue FROG, and she assumed mine would follow suit. No such luck. I could barely get my Bohemian clique to log onto the Pottery Barn site for a crib. If you want something special—one big thing—you must press this upon friends very early, before they shell out on life-size Pandas and such. The burden of monitoring the registry or the purchase of a single important item should really be upon the hostess and not the mother. True yummies simply murmur their desires; anything more explicit feels like a breech of etiquette. Or an invoice.
BE INVITING
For the invites to my NYC shower, I hand-painted watercolor pears on little squares of thick card trimmed with pinking shears…I assumed everyone would know they were self portraits. The hand-made touch was well received, and set the mood for a can-do simple yet stylish soiree. A witty alternative to mass produced shower invitations could be an individual package of pretty seeds (dahlias, rosebuds, gerberas) in clear colored envelopes with the invite written in metallic ink on matching paper, postcards featuring classic mother and child images (Chagall, Raphael, Picasso, Cassatt), or a lovely scented soap with the invite coiled around it on a long, thin strip of hand-made paper.
FOUR SIMPLE BUT SENSUAL THEMES
By the fate of geography I was lucky enough to receive two showers with two very different styles. Neither of my parties had specific themes, but both had a distinctly unfussy feel. Charlotte, the hostess of my Brooklyn shebang and mother of a toddler, turned up with tiny little shopping bag favors full of confetti, balloons and sacks of Chinese dumplings bought from the markets on Mott Street. She decreed that all the flowers in the room be white to offset the modest but sparkling metallic blue confetti and small favours she had strewn across the all white tablecloth. Sprinkled with blue sequins, the table looked like a glittering cloud.
My girlfriend Di bought a floral tea-set in my honor of my Sydney shower and asked me and many other friends to find more second-hand cups and teapots. The coven cobbled together everything from handmade trays of biscuits to single teabags. What motley grace! Each guest brought a different bunch of roses, a bottle of pink champagne or rose, or a home-made cake. Cakes that were store-bought were customized with fresh flowers on top. The look was very fertile, feminine and rustic
ORIENT-TATION
Hand painted Chinese parasols are not costly, and make a brilliant ceiling decoration with soft romantic colors. The same effect could be created with kites or decorative Asian paper lanterns. Use a long narrow strip of raw silk as a central runner and set apple/cherry blossoms, chrysanthemums, peonies or lotus flowers in real tea tins (the cheapest and loveliest decorative vase alternative).
Palette: Mint green and hot pink
Menu: Dim Sum, dipping sauces, grilled or steamed shrimp, money bags (frozen is fine), glazed chicken wings, pineapple salad, fresh lychee and ginger ice-cream, green tea cocktails.
Music: Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (Bowie/Sakamoto), The Mikado (Gilbert and Sullivan), Madame Butterfly (Puccini).
SECOND HAND ROSE
The high English tea is a timely repast from breakfast right through to supper time. The British have a pretext for a good cup of tea for almost any time of day, and so it should be with a shower tea. Arrange the table with savouries at one end, salads in the middle and cakes, scones, tarts and biscuits at the other. Use a length of cotton floral dress fabric for the table or a vintage tablecloth strewn with embroidered roses, and be sure that none of the cups match. Deli or hot house roses look more authentic cut short and placed in cut glass water jugs, strewn about singly in bud vases, or sprouting from a handful of much older teapots. When a teapot spout or handle breaks in my house it immediately goes on duty as a vase. Odd teacups from the 19th c. to the 50s are available at good prices on ebay, usually because they are not part of a set. Look for vendors from Canada; they always seem to have the best vintage china. I refresh my collection about once every two years, as old cups stain over time.
Palette: Cherry red and pale pink
Menu: Many homemade cakes including ginger sponge, Hob Nob chocolate biscuits, miniature party pies and sausage rolls, several steaming pots of tea from earl Grey to Lapsang Soochong, Oolong, Rose petal, Jasmine, Raspberry leaf (for pregnant and new mothers) and Hibiscus.
Music: Edith Piaf’s “Ma Vie en Rose”, Cesaria Evora, “My Fair Lady.”
PREGNANT AT TIFFANY’S
Holly Golightly was last seen munching a glazed doughnut and drinking a cup of joe outside the casement windows at Tiffany’s, and that’s not much of a menu for a pregnant chick. Steal the look of the Audrey Hepburn classic, with a perfectly square turquoise cake with Mummy’s name in Tiffany’s classic lettering, pink lemonade served in teardrop champagne glasses, and scrumptious brunch classics laid out on a table covered in monochromatic toile (the high impact, low cost upholstery fabric). Little black dresses, plastic pearls, alligator sling backs and big showy hats optional.
Palette: Tiffany turquoise and black and white toile
Menu: Frittata, Cucumber sandwiches, mixed berry summer pudding and clotted cream (see recipe), Pimms on ice, a side of baked salmon with dill sauce, baby lettuce salad, fresh strawberries, miniature scones and stone cut orange marmalade.
Music: Mad-cap 60s musicals such as Camelot, Cole Porter, Henry Mancini’s theme for Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Duffy and MY FAIR LADY.
CHILDHOOD FAVORITES
If girly girl themes are not your thing, a nostalgic ‘kid stuff’ party could be a nice way to ease a new mother into the fun that is to come, while letting everyone hark back to sweet and silly childhood memories of their own. I’m talking kitsch chi here though, not grown-ups dressed in diapers playing spin the baby bottle!
Palette: Bright orange and sky blue.
Menu: Gourmet versions of “kid food”—organic macaroni and cheese, baby burgers with brie and cherry tomatoes, bowls of wrapped candy bars with old fashioned wrappers, single soda and seltzer bottles with stripy straws, a cake decorated with a vintage toy. And YES this is the party where Twister and Monopoly are allowed, especially if real children are present.
Music: Retro soundtracks from TV and film: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Willy Wonka, My Favorite Martian, The Brady Bunch, The Banana Splits. Yellow Submarine etc… But absolutely no Wiggles.
REVIVE THE RITUAL, YOUR SPECIAL MAMA BLESSING
It’s true that way too much pre-natal emphasis falls on the “gear” of motherhood, the registration at some huge confusing baby warehouse, the stockpile of the diaper/baby wrap/onesie mountain. In the rush to nest, we might be overlooking the critical spiritual and emotional preparation needed to birth consciously, joyously and calmly. The Native American Dine tribe, known as Navajo, use the term “blessingway” to name a sacred ritual which confers strength upon a person undergoing radical transformation at several different stages of their lifecycle; blessingways were used for warriors setting into battle as well as women on the cusp of birth. In 2004, a group of Native American feminists asked that the term blessingway not be applied to alternative baby showers, so now the popular term for the ritual is “Mother Blessing.”
On a creative level, a mother blessing is very rich, offering the opportunity to perform a three dimensional poem to the mother you love. Never mind if you feel like a cheap imitation of Isadora Duncan leaping about a suburban living room evoking the “goddess”, or are reminded of art projects learned at camp involving feathers, beads and secret wishes. The whole point of a home-made ritual is making your intentions clear… of being free to dream aloud.
Popular and established elements of the blessing could include:
Burning a smudge stick, sage, oils or incense to sanctify the house for the coming birth (in the case of a home birth) or to welcome the newborn soon to be brought home. Bathing and massaging the feet of the mother being honored. Combing and dressing her hair with wild flowers. Offering food specific to the desires of the mother (an all-chocolate menu is acceptable). Reciting poems and songs which strengthen and inspire the mother. Threading a birth necklace: a simple ritual of every woman present contributing a bead to a silk cord that the mother will take into the birth with her. Lighting a candle and chanting or reciting blessings for the safe passage of the baby. Dancing about like a wood nymph. Decking the house like a coven. Erecting a tent. Filling the bath with blooms.
Now, I don’t see why any of these elements could not be threaded into a baby shower without anyone getting the giggles or feeling contrived, although champagne might be more effective than chai tea at this point. If any one of these rituals adds a somewhat theatrical element to the gathering, all the better; nothing is gonna be as dramatic as birth. Whatever loosens everyone up and helps them share is what is deeply needed on this day. The mother-to-be needs all of the wisdom, love, support, spoiling and sisterhood she can summon. The deeply holy spirit of birth and of mothering is sorely lacking in most pregnancy manuals, so it really comes down to her chosen circle to make up for the void.