CREATE A STYLISH SCENE: Conjure the low-slung dining salas of Southeast Asia by spreading a colorful blanket on your patio or lawn or in your living room. Top it with a coffee table, and place pillows around the periphery. Use a sarong as a table runner, add a centerpiece of a large decorative bowl of water and floating Gerbera daisies or gardenias surrounded by loose flower petals. Scatter vanilla- and gardenia-scented candles in sand-filled hurricane lamps. Add tiki torches, lanterns, tree lights, or as many candles as possible to the entire party area.
OFFER AN EXOTIC SPECIALTY COCKTAIL: Whip up a batch
of Misty Magic cocktails. A wickedly good tropical twist on
beloved white zinfandel, it's a pretty pink combo of Arbor Mist
Exotic Fruits white zinfandel and vodka. To make 10 drinks,
combine one 750 ml. bottle of Arbor Mist Exotic Fruits white
zin with one cup vodka, chill, and serve on the rocks.
GIVE GUESTS SOMETHING TO TALK ABOUT: Create flirta-
tious fun by offering flowers for guests to put in their hair with instructions that it should be placed behind the right ear if you're single, the left ear if you're taken, and both if you're taken but still game.
SERVE A SEXY, LIGHT MENU WITH A SINFULLY RICH FINISH: Start with tortilla chips with spicy mango salsa. For dinner, offer a self-serve build-your-own tacos or a taco salad bar (think grilled fish, shredded pork, shredded lettuce, salsa, guacamole, grated cheese, and lime wedges with either soft tacos or tostada shells). Finish with banana cobbler: Layer one big baking dish or individual ramekins with sliced bananas, pastry cream or vanilla pudding, and a topping of ¾-cup each of flour, sugar, and almonds pulsed in a food processor with
¼-teaspoon salt, and again with one stick of unsalted butter cut into small pieces until it’s clumpy. Brown the topping under the broiler, and serve.
