Wednesday, May 23, 2001

OK, so you're not a Park Avenue Princess with a place in the Hamptons and front-row seats to the Michael Kors show and friends with last names like Boardman and Lauder. You don't have Kate Spade mules. You've accepted that.

Well, sort of.

But there's something about summer, with its emphasis on casual entertaining, that makes you long for the kind of money and wardrobe and ocean-view property it takes to throw the simplest of parties. An evening that begins with cocktails on the terrace of the main house, perhaps, followed by a tiki torch-lit stroll over to the guest house for dinner.

Oh, you wouldn't serve anything fancy - it's summer. You're thinking lobster out of the shell with a corn salad, roasted breast of capon stuffed with mousse, wild rice and snap peas, and for dessert, a touch of whimsy: ice cream in homemade cookie cones.

You know envy's a bad thing, but it's not your fault, is it, if you - who were happy to have a deck for the first time in your adult life - were given a copy of New York magazine's ``Summer Entertaining'' issue, and read about people like Nan Kempner, people who can say, ``We had an amazing time on Valentino's 80-foot yacht,'' and not be kidding.

People like ``master party planner'' Colin Cowie, who ``rewrites the rules of the summer table,'' or Serena Bass, who knows hairstylists so famous they're considered legitimate celebrity guests.

You mock these stories, but secretly you want it to be your menu and entertaining panache that are fawned over by the New York media, you who drop little pearls like how you keep a bowl of fresh strawberries and whipping cream on hand in case Julian Schnabel or Willem Dafoe stops by on his way to the beach.

You want to be such a laid-back hostess that you can boast about handing guests their own knives and cutting boards when they arrive, and having them chop the chive and dill fresh from your garden. You want to have the kind of gracious spread that allows guests to linger around the pool house until 3 a.m., while you, dressed in flowing Ghost pants and top, yawn and say, ``I'm going to sleep! Last one up turn out the lights.''

But at this point, given who you are, you know that Willem and Julian aren't going to be stopping by, or even calling, for that matter, and that if you did have fresh strawberries in your refrigerator, you'd probably wolf them down before guests even got a shot at them. So you'd settle for less.

You'd be happy with some little corn-on-the-cob holders (fish-shaped, perhaps?), and a decorative bucket to toss the beer in, and those festive fluorescent tumblers and, while you're at it, a Nantucket striped umbrella. (Sure, your deck is on the first floor of a three-deck stack, so technically the sun's not a problem, but it's all about set design, anyway.)

Actually, you don't have any of that stuff, either. So all you can say is, ``Come over and we'll throw something on the grill.''

At least when you say ``casual'' you mean it. Not like some people!