Back in the gray days of February, Taylor was already looking ahead to a casual outdoor gathering of more than 100 old friends, new neighbors and professional associates. The home that she and her fiance, Bill Weisberg, were building in St. Davids would be ready by late March; Taylor figured that they could have it landscaped, furnished and r eady for guests by early May, well before their planned June wedding in Las Vegas.
The timing suggested a Cinco de Mayo party theme, with bold Mexican colors, spicy Mexican foods, tubs of Corona beer, pitchers of sangria, and pinatas dangling overhead. With the best possible luck, the Irish wolfhound puppy that Taylor hoped to bring home in April would also be housebroken by then.
"It was a lot of visualizing," said Taylor, 28, a former model, actress and June 1996 Playboy centerfold, who planned every detail with Karen Tosto of Peachtree & Ward Catering of Willow Grove. Their imaginations had to carry them initially, because when Taylor first contacted Peachtree, the St. Davids house was sodless and unfinished, and winter was refusing to budge.
For Tosto, the backyard topography posed the biggest challenge, though not an insurmountable one.
"It was a total slope. You can sled down it," she said. " We proposed doing three levels of floors and tenting it so 125 people could eat and dance. It is very hard for people to imagine, but we do it all the time."
Host who plan parties on this scale often hire a decorator to work with the caterer to achieve a unified "look." Taylor was eager to handle the details herself, having recently launched her own party planning/interior design company called Style House. Her housewarming party would also celebrate her transition to a new career.
"She has an incredible sense of style from her life experiences and her travels," Tosto said of Taylor, who lived in Miami, New York and Los Angeles during her eight years in modeling and three years in television, which included appearances in Baywatch, Malcolm & Eddie, and E! Gossip show.
Taylor and Weisberg, 43, who is a president and CEO of supplyFORCE.com, an e-commerce web site for construction and industrial materials, entertain frequently and are used to working with caterers. While some companies impose a set way of doing things on the client, Taylor described Peachtree as willing to execute her ideas as she wished.
"I didn't have to spend a lot of time convincing (Tosto) how I wanted things done," Taylor said. "We got the menu down in two days, the tenting, the dishes in one day."
To articulate the rustic-elegant theme, Taylor requested redwood picnic tables with brightly colored overlays, rather than the usual white-draped party tables. Deep blue, green and red glass plates and 16-ounce red glasses sangria goblets were rented from a New York company; Taylor found green margarita glasses she liked at Williams-Sonoma and bought them. Sacks of beans and rice, chili peppers, wooden bowls and copper vessels were used as props on the picnic and buffet tables.
The blue-and-white invitations, designed to mimic Corona beer labels, were affixed to real beer bottles and sent to guests in boxes packed with straw and chili peppers. The accompanying RSVP postcard bore the U.S Postal Service's Cinco de Mayo commemorative stamp.
Taylor made it clear that she wanted food available from the moment that guests began to arrive.
"I hate it when you go to a party and have to wait forever to eat," she said. "I think that's so rude."
The day before the party, visualization was well on its way to becoming a reality. A warm spell pushed temperatures up into the 80s, with no rain in the forecast. The temporary deck, which took 12 hours to construct, was in place. Crews were busy setting up one large tent and two smaller ones, taking care not to interfere with the trees on the edge of the property.
A carpet cleaner was also called in: Keeva, the 5 month-old Irish wolfhound, was not quite housebroken.
Taylor had shopped for weeks to build up a stash of party props: realistic-looking faux cacti made from fabric, lantern strings, small table lamps, and Mexican-style pinatas. The pinatas were the hardest to find, because party stores tended to stock ones shaped like "rabbits, Bart Simpson's, weird things," Taylor said.
Plans called for guests to turn their cars over to valets, enter through the front door of the house, and then walk straight ahead to double doors leading to the tented party area. There, they could help themselves to beer and sodas on ice in copper and galvanized tubs, or take a glass of freshly made sangria, with dry red burgundy and citrus fruits combined 24 hours earlier. A bar station stood ready to serve three kinds of margaritas.
Butlered hor d'oeuvres and grilled kabobs were ready at the start; the buffets and other grill stations opened 30 minutes after the party began. Keeva and Taylor's two older dogs, an 11-year-old peke-a-poo named Raven and a 10-year-old Lhasa apso named Sasha, mingled with their company. Once everyone had been fed, there was dancing to a DJ.
"We're still eating leftovers," Taylor reported three days after the party. "People were even dancing on the picnic tables. The neighbors were the last to go home."
Cinco de Mayo Recipes:
Tequila Marinade
- 1/2 cup olive oil
- 4 garlic cloves
- 1 cup tequila
- Juice from 12 limes
- 1/2 cup water
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper
If using for mahi-mahi, marinate about 2 pounds of fillets for 30 minutes before grilling. If using for chicken, marinate 2 pounds boneless breasts for 1 to 2 hours.
Menu:
Butlered hors d'oeuvres:
Preserved orange tuna with almond pesto; chicken with coffee barbecue sauce; tomato cumin beef with salsa verde
On each table: Blue and white tortilla chips with guacamole; tomato and tomatillo salsas
Quesadilla Station: Flour tortillas with choice of Yucatecan vegetables, Oaxaca chilies and Tijuana smoked chicken with Monterey Jack Cheese, jalapenos, tomatoes, sour cream
Grill station: Mahi-mahi filets with tequila and lime; chicken with mole marinade; rice and beans
Main Course: Filet with red rum chili sauce, scallion smashed potatoes, corn and red onion salad with chipotle vinaigrette, five-bean salad
Desserts: Margarita parfait; flan; assorted bread puddings
Beverages: Tequila, Corona beer, red sangria, margaritas, regular and decaffeinated coffee, assorted teas