Summer Entertaining
Laetitia shares her recipe for effortless summer entertaining. Forget perfect borders and endless jobs; the best way to garden in July is not to garden at all.
Laetitia shares her recipe for effortless summer entertaining: comfortable seating, armfuls of freshly cut flowers, simple food and the magic of a warm evening with friends. Forget perfect borders and endless jobs; sometimes the best way to garden in July is not to garden at all. Instead, pour a drink, hang some fairy lights and make the most of the space you've worked so hard to create.
If you know me in real life, then you’ll possibly be aware of my aversion to a heatwave. I think I actually suffer from a reverse form of seasonal affective disorder, where as soon as it becomes hot and still and it stays that way for any period of time longer than, say, a day, I become resolutely depressed, and lie in a heap, longing for winter, like a crocodile that’s lost its lifetime lover. I say crocodile, because along with the sadness comes an inevitable snappiness. People only have to look my way with a request-like expression and I lose my temper. The fact that all of this inevitably happens during the holidays (or, “What’s for lunch season” as I like to call it) only augments the torpor. I am literally in a Chekhov play, waiting for something we all thought might happen at the start, but which we have now forgotten as we are led down a rabbit hole of woe. Boiling hot woe.
It was on just a boiling hot day such as this, that Ann-Marie Powell and I sat down to chat all about our gardens, and specifically, how we like to entertain in them, and something happened which meant that Ann-Marie couldn’t get on the call, and that ultimately, we found that our incredibly good fun, hour-long chat couldn’t be heard by any of you. Ugh.
So I wanted to tell you how I like to entertain in July in the garden, which I find to be thoroughly better-making in heat like this, and how I keep the effort low and the yields high in this regard.
Impulsivity
Invitations to my garden happen on a whim. It’s not that I don’t think hard about whom I would like to spend time with, it’s just that in my experience the best laid plans always fall apart, where as a plan that springs into being as you are walking back from Sainsburys is often the start of one of the best nights of your life. To this end, I have found that early drinks on a Sunday evening is my favourite thing. Nobody has any plans on a Sunday evening, and yet if they don’t want to see anyone, they can just immediately use Monday morning as an excuse. Early drinks, starting at, say 5.30, are an incredibly accessible time; nobody feels they have to commit to a whole evening (please don’t); there is this utterly delicious idea that even if things go completely off the rails, you’ll still probably be in bed by nine. I love it. I ask randomly and with a certain recklessness; if it’s just a couple of people that’s lovely, but sometimes it can be rather more. Children are also very self-sufficient at this time, running into the mix to grab a handful of crisps and then disappearing to watch a movie. Teenagers too, will often appear for a drink and a chat.
Comfort
In order to encourage this type of vibe, the set-up is key. We have graduated from just having a table, to also having comfortable, lower seating in our garden. Drinks often merge into food without anyone moving from these lower chairs. Not that sitting around a table at our place is ever a formal affair, but the mere uprightness of sitting at a dining table is sometimes more than anyone wants, especially in the heat. No, you want to lounge…to sprawl even, so cushions are essential (I do bang on about cushions don’t I?) and I have fashioned a kind of low table with an old kilim-style floor runner on it for our drinks. The North African-esque feeling of this I think adds to this relaxed feeling.
Food and drink
Pay attention because this is important. Cooking at a boiling hot barbecue on a boiling hot day is simply not required. Literally nobody wants to eat your hot food anyway. Sorry. Even more important, is that nobody wants to watch you faffing around with food. If they have any manners, they’ll feel like they have to ask you if you want any help (the horror) and then your party is spoilt because everyone is bobbing up and down in an effort to be useful. No, your guests want you to sit down with them and chat. That’s it, so it’s incumbent on you to make sure that can happen by not being precious about things. So bought dips, pre-cut cucumbers, breadsticks, crisps and, well, anything from the picnic fridge in M&S will make this work. Remove plastic, decant into bowls (if you must) but let that be an end to the fussing. Lay the stuff out in front of everyone and forget about it.
Drinks need a bit more forethought (but not too much). Ice is mandatory, and must be plentiful and, crucially, nearby. I seem to have lived for half a century without an ice bucket, so I have finally ordered one (linked here). I think it’s really nice to pre-mix something delicious to make your life happy. A bottle of very cold spicy margarita that you have made, perhaps the day before, is never not a good thing. A drinks tray, with ice, right next to you in the garden not only looks indulgent but means you aren’t jumping up and down. And let’s face it, the entire point of this piece is the avoidance of jumping up and down.
Lighting
Ann-Marie and I had a long conversation during our ill-fated live, about citronella tiki torches that you can stick into the borders. These are filled with citronella oil and have a ten hour burn (linked here) and they sound utterly wonderful. Obviously, candlelight is the best light, but fairy lights come a close second. The ones I love are linked here and you can also buy a version on this site that are solar powered. At any rate, get some, whatever you do; adding fairy lights to the terrace immediately outside my kitchen window was one of the best things I have literally ever done in the garden; it opens up a new world in the dark and I thank my past self for it every morning in January and February.
Flowers
Last but definitely not least! We talked at length about bud vases, and what constitutes a good one. My favourites are linked here, but honestly, a jam jar or five will also work, filled, at this time of year with ALL the Alchemilla mollis, geraniums, honeysuckle, and grasses, roses etc you can pluck from the garden. Anything and everything looks good and chic and intentional in a bud vase; there are no rules except abundance, and this is certainly not something to be artful about. There is something uniquely luxurious about having flowers in vases outside.
That’s it. I hope you are all enjoying your gardens this month. I am certainly enjoying the upper storey of climbers and trees that are providing me with a space that’s several degrees cooler in the midday sun, than being in my house!
Do share your tips for summer entertaining here if there’s anything you think we all need to know about. See you soon!
Laetitia x
