May 22nd, 2009

If there’s a secret to throwing the perfect party, we haven’t found it yet. One host can put on the dog, spending hundreds, or thousands, on wholesale party supplies and huge amounts of food and beverages at one of the bulk discounts, and then match all that shopping work with the work of creating an elaborate theme. The result: the kind of soul-killing boredom that has guests claiming they’ve received urgent text messages from long dead relatives or feigning seizures just to liven things up. A skilled party-thrower, however, can create a night of miraculous wonder, or at least genuine fun, with not much more than a six-pack and a package of Lipton’s Onion Soup mix, though...