“[M]ost people are just plain scared to entertain,” says Denise Vivaldo, author of Do It for Less! Parties. Her book, and another I recently discovered, The Surreal Gourmet Entertains by Bob Blumer, go head to head with many of the common fears that keep us from giving parties. The two books are very different in style, but they both contain plenty of solid advice, and leave you with the feeling that entertaining might not be so bad after all.

If you’re afraid that . . .

• you’ll forget something really important — Do It For Less! tells you exactly what lists you need to make to ensure everything’s covered.
• your house just isn’t up to it, The Surreal Gourmet says, “Overcoming the shortcomings of your surroundings will add to the pleasure and spontaneity of the party.” If you only have two chairs, he says, put them away, seat everyone on the floor, and eat Japanese.
• you’ll miscalculate how much food/drink/table space you need, Do It for Less!, written by a professional caterer, has charts and estimates for everything.
• people won’t get there on time, The Surreal Gourmet has a trick that will work once: Pretend to be someone else, giving a surprise party for you.
• you won’t be able to think of a theme, or you’ll pick the wrong theme: The two books disagree here, to a point. Do It for Less! finds themes inspiring; The Surreal Gourmet says they’re risky. “Half-baked themes tend to die slow and miserable deaths.” He goes on to suggest some, nonetheless. You can read some suggested themes and make up your own mind — it’s your party.

Both books have tons more tips for the party-phobic, as well as plenty of recipes that’ll feed small or large crowds. If you want to get over your fears of entertaining, either one is a great place to start.

This Labor Day, cap off your summer with a pleasant picnic party.  Its the perfect excuse to head outdoors, and enjoy nature! You can keep this party on the small side or make it as large as you want. Setting up a picnic is pretty simple as the theme is nature, giving you the choice of holding the party at a local park or in the comfort of your backyard. Read on for more ideas on how to create the perfect Labor Day Picnic.

1- Make It A Pot Luck Picnic

Save yourself from extra work and ask everyone to bring a little something to the picnic. You can make a bunch of sandwiches or barbeque chicken and ask your friends to bring side dishes, desserts, or even beverages.

2- Keep All Decor Simple

The only things you really need are tablecloths, paper plates, plastic forks and knives, paper napkins, and plastic cups.

3- Prepare To Battle Bugs

To ward off any unwanted visitors, bring citronella candles to light up during the picnic.  Citronella is a natural bug repellent that is harmless to humans.

4- Extend Your Afternoon With Games For All

Make your Labor Day picnic more than just about food, extend the summer fun with games that everyone can enjoy. Think frisbee tournaments, softball games, bingo, and the classic potato sack race.

5- Keep Everyone Hydrated

Make sure the pitchers of fruit punch and lemonade are full at all times. You could also just keep a large supply of water bottles and diet sodas on hand.

6- Cap Off The Party With A Fantastic Desert.

No party is ever complete without a big treat so spoil your guests with an ice cream cake or a cookie tray.

A barbecue doesn’t have to mean burgers, chicken, or ribs. A pizza party doesn’t have to mean heating up the kitchen, either. You can combine two American traditions and make pizza on your barbecue.

Here’s how:

• Use your favorite fresh — not frozen –  pizza dough for the crust. It can be homemade or ready made.
• Heat the barbecue to about 350, using an oven thermometer to measure. “Try to recreate an oven,” says IdeaOffer reader JAC.
• Put the toppings on the crust before you begin cooking. Some people like to grill both sides of the crust, then put on toppings, but we found this didn’t improve the taste.
• Put the crust on a well-greased pan or piece of foil.
• Raise it off the grill, and close the lid. Reader Diana Smith recommends bricks for this; we had better luck with a large empty coffee can. It was just the right size for a one-person pizza, and the cheese browned just right.  (I got the tin can  idea from the Urban Griller.) You can put the pan or foil right on the grill, but the pizza is much more likely to burn that way, we found. A barbecue grill’s not the most evenly heated surface.
• Grill the pizza for roughly as long as you would bake it, but be more watchful than you would if it were in the oven. JAC says, “Keep an eye on the temperature and the flames at all times in relation to the dough.”
• When the pizza is done and cooling, you may want to put more cheese on. In fact, we made two that had only cheddar cheese as toppings — one with the cheese put on the crust before grilling, one with it put on after — and they came out pretty much the same.

Think about making your next barbecue a pizza party.

Every summer holiday has one thing in common – I celebrate with a cookout. Memorial Day? Cookout. Flag Day? Cookout. My wife’s birthday falls in June, so it’s a cookout.  Indepedence Day?  Obviously.  Labor Day? Last cookout of the summer.

If you’re celebrating… anything… this summer, a cookout is the way to go. All cookouts are pretty great, but there are some things you can do to ensure that your summer festivities are extra special.

1) Repel the bugs. A fine summer day can devolve into an itchy bugfest with the onset of dusk. Setting a bottle of Off on the picnic table isn’t enough to protect your guests and your reputation as a host. Prepare your yard ahead of time with a lawn spray. You can generally get a full day of bug free living with one application.

2) Food. Cookout time is no time to worry about diets. The grill is meant to cook meat, and lots of it. Hamburgers, hot dogs, and various sausages are the preferred fare. You can supplement with salads and fruits and such, but don’t neuter your BBQ by taking away the good stuff.

3) Plan for the Weather. You can’t control the weather, but you can mitigate its effects. Consult the Farmer’s Almanac when picking the date. If you live in an area prone to late afternoon showers, move the party earlier in the day. Work around the things you can’t control.

4) Shake things up. It’s easy to plan one great cookout. Planning a string of them over several months year after year requires a little more. You can’t just do the same thing every time. Adjust the theme for each event. Aunt Betty’s 70th birthday party should feel distinctly different from your Memorial Day celebration.

5) Piñatas. If you’ve got kids at the party, you can’t go wrong with a piñata. Just remember two important things: Make sure you’ve got a video camera and keep out of the way. Trust me on this one.

If you’re out of new ideas for parties, or if you never had any ideas  in the first place, here’s a helpful resource for you: Block Parties and Poker Nights: Recipes and Ideas for Getting and Staying Connected with Your Neighbors, by Peggy Allen (Clarkson Potter, 2002).

This book focuses on entertaining your neighbors, both those you know well and those you’ve never met, so the ideas can be used for just about any group you want to have over.

Peggy Allen and her sources have some original themes for parties:

• Morning coffee, held very early so everyone can get to work on time. I didn’t really like the sound of this one till I read that it should be a potluck, at least in the beginning. Getting up early doesn’t sound so bad when someone else is bringing freshly baked muffins.
• The Busy Ladies’ Lunch: This goes on from 11 AM to 3:30 PM, with soup, salad, muffins, dessert, and no dress code. Guests come when they can and stay as long as they can.
• The Progressive Dinner: This was popular during World War II, when food was rationed. No one has to make a whole dinner — guests go to a different house for each course.
• Carp and Complain Night: I’ll let the author describe it. “This party usually takes place around the time that college applications are due, during long stretches of lousy weather, or after too many business trips have been taken . . . What gets said is forgotten by morning.”

As the title promises, the book also covers block parties and poker (and bunco) nights. Oh, and Kentucky Derby parties with real betting.

There are also tons of recipes and lots of practical tips on getting along with your neighbors. But if you’re reading just for the party planning advice, it’s worth it for that alone.

Graduating from high school or college is a big deal, and chances are you know of someone who is ending their high school or college career within the next two months. If you are the parent, grandparent, or even the graduating student, its time to start planning a graduation celebration. The best way to start planning is by choosing a theme and taking it from there. Using a theme will work as a base of ideas, but don’t be afraid to get a little creative! Read below for two stellar themes.

Carnival Party Theme: Does your graduate love a good carnival? If so, why not incorporate this idea into your theme? You can start out by renting a city park (or your backyard for a smaller carnival), carnival style booths, a Velcro wall, gaming areas, etc. Don’t forget to add a few snack booths that serve fun and tasty foods like ice cream, hot pretzels, cotton candy, lemonade, and more. If you know of 3 or 4 people graduating around the same time, why not ask all the families to chip in on a carnival style party to cut costs for everyone?

Poolside Barbecue Theme: This is a fun and cheap way to celebrate right in the comfort of your home. Start the party earlier in the afternoon and kick if off with a luau style pool party and then firing the grill around 5:00 in the evening.  You don’t have a pool? No problem, this party focuses more on the old-fashioned barbecue get-together. Start by fixing a menu of barbecue classics like cheeseburgers, barbecued chicken, pasta salad, and brownies. It would be a smart idea to add a few vegetarian friendly things to the menu like grilled portobello mushrooms and fresh garden salad so there is something for everyone. If you don’t have a lot of time or don’t want to spend a lot of time cooking, you could add a potluck to the theme and ask everyone to bring a side dish or dessert to the party.

Cinco de Mayo is coming up soon! If you’re celebrating it with your own party, here are some suggestions to help you decide what to do.

Party Themes/Ideas

There’s only really one theme that can be used to celebrate Cinco de Mayo, and that’s FIESTA! Create flowers using tissue paper in green, white and red (colors of the flag of Mexico) and place them everywhere anywhere in the venue. You also can hang streamers and strips of paper in green, white and red in the venue. Have fun with it and go wild!

Provide sombreros and toy maracas as party favors. Be sure to have Mexican music playing to keep the people dancing and in the spirit of celebration.

Food

Serve some corn chips with salsa and cheese, tacos, chili, fajitas, quesadillas and tostadas. If you’re not too worried, create a separate station for each where people are free to make their own food. If you don’t want it to get messy, do it yourself. Serve some refreshing iced drinks and, for the adults, serve some margaritas, cervezas, daiquiris and, of course, tequila!

Activities

For the kids: Have them create their own sombreros, maracas and Mexican food! Provide decorations and the materials, and show them how it’s done. Wait for the results and let them keep what they made.

For everyone: Create teams of about eight people and have them stand in line. Give them oranges, which the first person should tuck under his chin. He should pass it then to the next person in his team without using his hands. When it reaches the last person, she should run to the start of the line and start again. The first team to have the original first person in the starting position wins.

Whatever you decide to do, make sure everything is done in the spirit of fun. After all, that’s what fiesta is all about!

A school pizza day can be a great fundraiser. The kids all have to eat lunch anyway, and most of them love pizza. Offer beverages, dessert, and an alternate main dish (for the few who don’t want pizza), order in bulk from a nearby restaurant and stores, add about a dollar to the price of each item, and you’re set to raise hundreds in a single day.

I learned all this when I took over the pizza day program at my son’s school. I learned a lot of other things, too – the parents who did the job before me had set things up to run as smoothly as possible. So, though I can’t take credit for all of them, here are some tips for a successful pizza day:

• Keep it simple: Offer two kinds of pizza, juice boxes, individually wrapped fruit snacks, and cookies or another dessert.

• Collect orders four or five days in advance.

• Use Excel or a similar program to chart the orders by class. Set the spreadsheet to count the total for each item in each class.

• Find out how many slices are in a pizza and have the program figure out how many pizzas (not slices) you’ll need.

• Use disposable plates and write each student’s name on one.

• Order the day before, or earlier. Pick up the pizzas about half an hour before lunchtime.

• Print the spreadsheets and give each class’ page to a volunteer. This person should start by getting the right number of juice boxes, snacks, and desserts.

• When everyone’s done this, divide the pizza slices. You’ll end up with mixed boxes for each class.

• Take each class its order, along with the spreadsheet page and plates. Let one student “help” you.

• If there’s any leftover pizza, sell it to parents! Every dollar helps.

The rite of spring always starts with Easter. The flowers come out, the days become longer, and the weather starts to feel warmer than it did the previous months. In neighborhoods across America, families with young children often get together and start coordinating Easter egg hunt parties. If you plan on hosting one this upcoming Easter (Sunday April 4, 2010), make sure you have a supply of tasty refreshments and beverages for everyone. Here are some ideas on what to serve.

Healthy Snacks
Since the kids will get their fill of sweets with the candy-filled Easter baskets, it would be a smart idea to serve a tray of fresh veggies or crudites for everyone to snack on. Save time, and purchase a tray of pre-cut crudites including carrot sticks, celery, cherry tomatoes, and olives. If you want, add some salsa or ranch dressing for dipping.

Deviled Eggs
This classic recipe has been around forever for a reason: they are crowd-pleasers and make excellent hors d’ourves! Start by hard boiling whole eggs, then set them aside to cool off for at least 20 minutes. Next peel the shells off, then cut each egg in half and scoop out each half’s yolk filling into a bowl. Set your hard-boiled halves aside, and mash the egg yolks until they’re almost powder-like and add whatever seasoning or condiments you’d like. Stir well, and then take a small spoon and place some filling into each egg half. Do this with each half until they’re all filled. Once you’re done you either can serve them right away or keep them refrigerated until the guests arrive.

Beverages
Since you cannot serve refreshments without beverages, make sure you offer some cold drinks at your Easter egg hunt party. Keep it family friendly and serve ice-cold lemonade or limeade. Keep a pitcher or two of this beverage on hand to make sure that everyone is satisfied. You also could serve light alcoholic beverages for adults if you’d like.