By Stephanie Witt Sedgwick
Special to The Washington Post
Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Neema Enriquez can't wait. The 30-year-old has spent weeks planning everything for her dinner party with precision, from the handmade invitations to the five-course menu. Others may daydream about vacations, but her thoughts have been occupied by what she should wear (pumps or flats?) and which dessert she should make (tarte tatin or chocolate-cranberry torte?).

As the night arrives, Enriquez's only jitters are of the when-will-my-friends-get-here variety. She's got the music playing and the candles lit while she calmly zests lemons and chops bacon. The dessert -- she settled on the torte -- comes out of the refrigerator to warm to room temperature, and everything's under control. "It's going to be fun," she says.

Dinner isn't scheduled until 6, but by 4:30 the first friend has shown up at Enriquez's Petworth townhouse. It's Alicia Torres, who is here to hang out while Enriquez gets ready and immediately confesses: "I've been dreaming about this party for days. I haven't eaten all day." Enriquez, a land acquisition specialist for a home builder, gives Torres her marching orders: Keep an eye on the time.

Is that a sign that Enriquez is finally getting nervous? No, she's just being careful. This is the first big dinner party in her new house, and she's taken some time off work for the preparations. A devotee of food magazines (she started subscribing to Bon Appetit at age 15), she picked dishes she has already perfected: a refined roasted eggplant soup, a festive scallop appetizer, a salad she perked up with raspberries and blackberries. Even at the last minute she's happily tweaking. The salad recipe called for sheep's milk cheese to be cubed, but as she tosses, she decides on a more elegant approach and shaves the cheese on top.

Some may fret that entertaining is a lost art, but Enriquez and others provide evidence to the contrary. As the holiday season kicks in, they're poring over recipes, planning menus and choosing guests. Enriquez hosted an intimate dinner for her closest friends; other party-givers are planning simple buffets, and the truly ambitious are organizing large cocktail parties to wow a circle of friends, colleagues and neighbors.

Are they beset by nerves? Naturally, although Enriquez prefers the word excitement. It's the edge that powers her through the cleaning, menu planning, shopping and, of course, cooking.

Uma Anandakrishnan, an engineer who lives in Ellicott City, acknowledges feeling "a bit nervous before a party," but says it's not enough to slow her down. "I get excited about getting everyone together," she says. And, she admits, she's "a bit of a showoff."

At a dinner for 20 a few weeks ago, Anandakrishnan, 45, had everything ready to go in advance, so even a little last-minute furniture rearranging didn't upset her schedule. For the numbers she was expecting, she decided on a buffet as the most practical approach. As for strategy, she and her husband, Ravi, throw a party like this every couple of months, so she knows what she's doing.

Though she likes to experiment, this was a family dinner, so she stuck with traditional Indian dishes just like the ones her mother would have made: peas pulav; chicken cooked with chili powder, ginger and cloves and finished with coconut; and a dal with tomatoes. All the dishes except the rice, which she cooks right before she serves dinner, got a quick reheat before making their way to the buffet table. In Hindi style, guests ate them with their fingers.

When Jennifer and Peter Beckman throw parties at their Falls Church home, she doesn't hew to tradition. Jennifer Beckman, 32, started giving parties in law school and considers entertaining her favorite sport. With a toddler running around and another on the way, she's just trying to keep in the game. As her life has changed, so have her guests' lives, and that has affected her parties. "I've definitely changed the formality level," she says. "Most of our guests now have kids. There's a lot less caviar."

While Anandakrishnan favors the dinner buffet, Beckman prefers a great cocktail party. "I'm not responsible for providing a balanced meal," she says. "Just fun food." She loves to pick a cocktail or theme and build a party around it. For a soiree for 50 people in late December, she plans a pan-Asian menu that revolves around a ginger martini. She adds a warm scallion crab dip served with wonton chips, crudites with a green curry aioli, and Vietnamese meatballs served in lettuce cups.

With a large circle of friends, Enriquez goes to many parties. Even though her dinner features a complicated five-course menu, she says that the food is secondary and that people shouldn't let fear of cooking stop them from entertaining. "A great party is about the energy between the people," she says.

Enriquez has energy in spades. By 7:30 p.m., 90 minutes past the announced start time, the last guests are arriving. But Enriquez is too gracious to start dashing off a complaint to Miss Manners. Her friends are busy chatting, playing the food-related crossword puzzle she designed, checking out the rings of a newly married couple, taking house tours and ogling Enriquez's closets. Besides, her food is just as ready to sit for hours as it is to plate at a moment's notice. She's not about to throw off any bad vibes. As Beckman puts it, there's only one sure party-killer, and that's a host whose stress ruins the atmosphere.

If staying relaxed means ordering out rather than cooking, so be it. "A Costco party can be great," Beckman says. "And it beats a host who's so nervous they make everyone else nervous."

She puts her advice to work in her own party plans. Along with the scallion dip, crudites and meatballs, Beckman thinks, she'll serve fresh summer rolls -- fresh from her local Vietnamese restaurant.

Former Food section recipe editor Stephanie Witt Sedgwick writes a monthly Entertaining column for The Post. Staff writer Annie Groer of the Home section contributed to this report.