How to Host a Moms’-Night-In Snack Party
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Hosting can be a lot, especially when part of the game is having the soirée you put together look effortless. In this series, veteran party throwers tell us how they pull off their highly specific, flawlessly executed gatherings. This installment comes from Georgia Freedman, author of the just-released cookbookSnacking Dinners,who shares how to plan and execute a chill evening of snacks and drinks for busy parents.
Georgia Freedmanis, of course, not the first person to have lost her mind a bit during the pandemic. “Moms everywhere did,” she says. But a silver lining — one she has carried with her since — is the tradition of having other moms over. While it started as a distanced backyard thing, the idea is the same now as it was then: to find some time away from the kids, to check in with one another, to slow down for a minute.
The catch? Moms generally are extremely busy and have very different schedules from one another. “I realize, at this stage in my life, that finding time to get a group of people together in an organized way is really hard,” Freedman says. “Having sort of an open-house situation ends up being easier.”
The group size and menu may change from occasion to occasion, but the general format consists of “that grazing, snacking style of meal,” she says — one you can eat without a fork and knife. The dishes she served at a recent get-together at her home in Oakland, California, were from her cookbook: Crudités With Green Goddess Dip, Black Bean Picadillo With Tortilla Chips, Bánh Mì Bites, and Jammy Eggs with various toppings, plus a batched Clarified Coconut Milk Paloma alongside some other drinks. And the sentiment of each gathering remains the same: Show up when you can, leave when you need to, and eat and drink and socialize while you’re here.
Two days before: Grocery shop and get early prep work out of the way
We live five minutes from Berkeley Bowl West, and Berkeley Bowl is one of the best grocery stores in the country, possibly the world. It’s a one-stop place for everything from incredibly good meats to produce that you really can’t find anywhere else, so I do most of my shopping there.
A lot of these recipes really draw from the pantry — stuff I already have on hand — so now I buy mostly the fresh stuff, like citrus for the cocktail and vegetables for the dip. Otherwise, I just do a couple of cooking tasks to get them out of the way.
First thing: I make the cocktail because it needs time to clarify. I like a batched cocktail because if something is premade, people are more likely to have a little special something instead of just opening the rosé (my friend brought a delicious rosé, and we did that as well). It gives people a really easy entryway into having something special.
You mix coconut milk, tequila, grapefruit, lime, and agave nectar in a glass bottle (in this case, I used a tequila bottle I washed and removed the label from after I made the cocktail and refrigerated it; it has a nice shape and a sturdy stopper, so I thought it would be a good one to keep around); shake it up; and add water so it’s already nicely diluted. When you batch a cocktail and you’re not planning to put it on ice, you want to have some water in there. That goes into the fridge, and I’ll clarify it the next day.
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I also cook the eggs, which just means gently putting them into a pot of simmering water. You could use a classic spider, but I use a Japanese perforated spoon. It’s quite stable — nothing rocks around, nothing tips over. It really cradles the eggs, and I can easily set it into the bottom of the pot and then pull it back out.
I think in the book I call it an eight-minute egg because in my fridge and in a lot of the ones I’ve tested, that tends to be the right amount of time. But my mom gets a totally gloopy mess at eight minutes, so I always say to test one or two eggs beforehand.
Once I pull them out, I put them in an ice bath to stop the cooking, place them back in the carton, and back into the fridge until I’m ready to peel.
One day before: Even more prep work
First thing — since this can happen as I’m working on other stuff — is to clarify the coconut cocktail, which is basically just filtering out the fat and milk parts so you’re left with just the water. I set up a classic pour-over coffee filter in a funnel over another large jar. Those filters are really dense, so it makes the liquid nice and clear. I stir periodically and add a little more as it goes through.
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I like my flowers to open up, so I try to do them a day before as well. I had a couple of bunches I bought from the store and then I pulled a couple of branches — like short ones off my lemon tree, and we have plum trees that needed to be thinned on the bottom. I set those up all around the house.
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Then I cut the crudités and put wet paper towels around them in containers in the fridge. I like to do a mix of the regular stuff: celery, carrots (though I try to buy the small, pretty Nantes carrots), snap peas, French radishes. If there are good green beans, I’ll blanch those.
I make the Green Goddess dip, too, because it holds up well. There are, of course, a bunch of recipes for this out there. Mine uses pretty standard herbs and has miso, which adds a little roundness, umami, and sweetness. I use Greek yogurt as the base so it’s nice and thick — a dip instead of a dressing.
Next up is the pickles for the bánh mì bites, which I’ll assemble tomorrow. For the book, I wanted them to be the fastest possible version, so it’s grated carrot and daikon, which absorb flavors really quickly thanks to their tiny size. You massage them in salt and sugar, let them sit, and then add a little slightly warmish water and vinegar (this helps it absorb quickly, too). Realistically, the whole thing is done in like ten to 15 minutes. But since I was doing it a day ahead for this party, I just added extra water to the brine so it wouldn’t end up too tart.
I slice jalapeños for the bánh mì, too (though I keep these on the side, just in case people don’t like spicy).
Finally, I throw a few bottles of wine and sparkling lemonade in the fridge so I don’t have to think about it the next day.
Day of
2 p.m.: Clean your glasses (and yourself)
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I find that glasses and platters can end up being a bit dusty or have a little oil on them from cooking if they’re on an open shelf. So I try to make sure I wash or rinse everything I need beforehand so I’m not crazed by later realizing nothing is clean. I also shower and change into something bright and fun, like my blue jumpsuit from Big Bud Press (it doesn’t have this exact color right now, but all of them are great).
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Our collection ofplattersis something we’ve built over time. We live near the Heath Ceramics factory, so we go to its seconds sales and I have a lot of those pieces to mix and match.
Then otherwise, I have a big woodencutting boardthat doubles as a cheese or crudité board, plus a gazillion little glass prep bowls. Because they’re glass, they’re still pretty. I also have a lot of little Japanese rice bowls. With a snacky setup, these really come in handy. I use them to nestle the dip or the topping or whatever onto the larger platter so it’s clear what goes with what.
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I like to use cake stands for presentation, too. In this case, I knew I wanted the eggs to feel special because of the egg-pricing situation, so I eventually put those on there. That way, we could take it into the living room, too — the base is small so it doesn’t take up much space. You can sort of stack if you want.
I take out Champagnecoupesfor the sparkling lemonade and the sparkling water because I just feel like if you’re not drinking alcohol, you can still have a really pretty glass. And I wash the Nick and Nora glasses for the cocktails. I love them because they hold a small amount so people don’t feel overwhelmed by it, and they can get seconds or try something else depending on what they want. And then I have little lowball glasses I like to use for wine — not as many stemmed things that could be knocked over.
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Once everything is clean, I rim the cocktail glasses with Tajín. It sticks really well to a glass, which is nice because it doesn’t end up all over the house as people carry their drinks around. I use grapefruit for the citrus swipe since that’s the primary flavor of this particular cocktail. Also, I don’t do the whole rim because what if someone doesn’t want spiciness in their sip or wants to go back and forth? And it just looks so festive to have the little swoop on one side.
3 p.m.: Set out snacks
Cheese is better at room temperature, so I put that out. I had some dried fruit and some olives — also better at room temp. And the crudités don’t have to be cold, they just have to be fresh. So I arrange that platter and take my time making it nice and then put wet paper towels on top — just to keep things feeling fresh. I employed this trick I learned from the food stylist on my cookbook: I halved some of the snap-pea pods so you could see the little peas inside. It was something she did that I thought lookedso special even though it takes all of 30 seconds to do it.
4 p.m.: Final touches
I peel the eggs. I really roll them all around and get a nice crack on the shell so I’m not pulling off big chunks. It’s a bit messier, but it makes for a cleaner separation. Then I cut the eggs in half and give them four different toppings. The first is a mix of Maldon salt and some Aleppo pepper. Then I make one with everything-bagel seasoning.
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The third is Sichuan inspired: I slice some scallions and put those on, along with some of Fly By Jing’s chile crisp and this Sichuan-pepper oil from 50Hertz. I just use the tiniest little bit because it can be very overwhelming. I’ve lived in Yunnan Province, which is right next to Sichuan, so that flavor combination is my other home and I like to add that to things. It’s very obvious that it’s spicy (it’s red), so people who don’t like that can stay away.
And then the last one was green eggs and ham (because my kid loves that one, I made her an extra before she left the house with my husband). It’s a little glop of pesto (I usually make my own, though I didn’t for this because I found a nice one at the store) and a little tiny piece of ham, like prosciutto.
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Then come the bánh mì. These are build-your-own because I think that makes food — the snacky kind like this — a lot more fun. You can play with ratios or eat some baguette with the cheese instead. But I make a few to start so people understand what they’re “supposed” to do.
I slice a couple of baguettes on the bias so the pieces are nice and big. I bought two pâtés: one a combination of duck and pork, the other a mushroom version for a friend who doesn’t eat meat. I put out a little bowlfuls of the pickles I made and then really drained so they were nice and dry, the sliced jalapeño, and some cilantro leaves. I arrange that all on the serving platter.
Finally, I make the black-bean picadillo. This evening, I did it at the end because it was the one warm dish I was serving. It’s basically canned and jarred ingredients I always have stashed in my pantry and fridge — it’s black beans and diced tomatoes with garlic, green olives, and raisins, all seasoned with cinnamon and paprika — and takes about 20 minutes total, including a tiny bit of chopping. I also add a little Japanese soy sauce to give the beans that hit of umami you’d normally get from the beef in a classic Cuban picadillo.
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Right before the guests are due to arrive, I put the bottles — the cocktails, wine, and sparkling lemonade — on ice and set all the glasses out next to them. Creating a drink buffet makes it easier for people to decide what they want and then to go back for seconds. When people arrive, I’m always like, “Oh, let’s get you a drink.” But as the evening progresses, I want everyone — whether they know me well or are fairly new to the group — to feel comfortable helping themselves.
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I also make sure my coffee table is stocked with coasters since that’s where we all gather. My friend gifted me these Graf Lantz ones for my birthday last year because they absorb any moisture that gathers — and they’re such beautiful shades of blue.
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Oh, and I put on music. I have this little portable Bluetooth speaker I got at the MoMA store last summer. It’s small so it can be moved anywhere, but it gives a really nice sound.
5 p.m.: Friends trickle in (and out)
Friends start to trickle in around 5 p.m. I had some who were coming after a work conference in the city, so they drove in when that was over. And then one friend came early and left early because she was on her way to see someone else. On other occasions with a similar setup, I have some friends who come late and stay late because that’s how their life works. The point is: It’s flexible.
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