Inaugural celebration

Sun., Jan. 9, 2005

Annie Groer The Washington Post

WASHINGTON – So you’re not going to an inaugural ball but still want to celebrate Four More Years?

New York party planner David Tutera – who counts Elton John, the Kennedy Center and the National Symphony Orchestra among his clients – suggests a “denim and diamonds” cocktail party for Jan. 20. (How better to evoke rich Texans, no?)

Skip the red-white-and-blue cliché in favor of all red or all blue, including candles, flowers, barware and drinks, says the author of two party-throwing books and host of the Discovery Channel’s new daytime show “Party Planner with David Tutera.” But he’s no fan of color-themed appetizers or entrees (though we vote for steak tartare as a deliciously apt symbol of today’s red-meat politics).

Red, as in Republican states, is a snap: a splash of cranberry or pomegranate juice or a raspberry in those champagne cocktails and martinis. Find scarlet plates, napkins and tablecloths in the Christmas section of stores “because you can probably find lots of things 75 percent off,” he says. And try chocolate-dipped strawberries for dessert.

“The easiest way to go” blue at the bar is Blue Curacao liqueur in the champagne or martini. Or muddle a blueberry or two in the bottom of the glass. Have lots of blue candles. And artistically apply blue stars and stripes to inexpensive votive holders and glasses using translucent glass paint. Blue flowers include hydrangea, bachelor’s button and delphinium.

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