Entertaining in the real world can be fun, easy and delicious

When publishers use the phrase "real life" to sell cookbooks, I get suspicious. Often, the author's perception of reality will be entirely different from my own, or, for that matter, from anyone else's I know. "Real life" meals may either be heavily dependant on convenience foods, or, as in the case of some chefs' cookbooks, be simply out of touch with what the home cook can really produce.

But with "Real Life Entertaining: Easy Recipes and Unconventional Wisdom" (William Morrow, $27.50), author Jennifer Rubell has conjured up 25 menus that are fresh, hip and entirely doable.

Rubell's hectic schedule in her family's small boutique hotel chain doesn't leave her much time for fussy productions. "After spending my days overseeing staff and taking care of guests, what I craved was simplicity and intimacy: unpretentious, easy, comfortable evenings at home with friends," she writes. "Cooking was a major part of these evenings, though never a major undertaking. The food I made was rustic and simple, ridiculously easy to prepare but still gorgeous and delicious when it arrived at the table."

She developed a casual entertaining style that gave both guests and host a chance to relax, sharing good food and conversation.

"Everything I cook is from scratch, but nothing is complicated," writes Rubell. "Excitement comes less from exotic, hard-to-make dishes than from interesting combinations of familiar ingredients, simply prepared. Instead of dressing up food with time-consuming techniques and hard-to-find ingredients, I add a little something that makes a major difference: fennel seeds tossed into sautéed peppers, tangy pickles in an orzo salad, dried figs for a sweet note to mashed potatoes."

In The Seattle Times Test Kitchen, we tried out Rubell's menu of skirt steaks paired with those fig-stoked mashed potatoes.

Although the combination of figs and potatoes was unusual — I initially had doubts about it myself — our wide-ranging group of testers loved it. The dish was hearty, homey and sophisticated, a rare combination in itself. The other recipes we tested from "Real Life Entertaining," were equally quick, unusual and delicious.

As terrific as the recipes are, Rubell's break-the-rules style of entertaining may be equally appealing to readers.

It's fun and totally engaging, whether she's setting out a big roll of paper towels for a beer and chicken wings get-together or serving a sit-down dinner family-style.

Each chapter begins with notes on Essentials, which provide a framework for the menu and party. For instance, the Essentials for the Brunch chapter establishes the basic concept for the party, the ideal number of guests, whom to invite, and what to tell your friends to bring. It sets the mood, provides the minimum acceptable advance notice (for brunch that would be "at least a week, since Sundays tend to get booked up"), and the drink of choice (coffee, and lots of it).

One of Rubell's entertaining secrets is to ask a friend to bring dessert or something that may lighten her own work load. For those of us who have a tendency to say no to offers of help, this book may encourage us to reassess our entertaining strategies. Jennifer Rubell's "real life" looks much like ours, and her entertaining secrets are ones to emulate.

CeCeSullivan: csullivan@seattletimes.com