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In
Print: For the 20-something, adulthood step by step
September 8, 2005
By Lisa Grunwald
"Playing House: A Starter Guide to Being a Grown-Up" by Celeste Perron. HarperCollins. $16.95.
259 pages.
I used to think that becoming a grown-up, like becoming enlightened in certain Eastern religions, was a goal best achieved without too much conscious effort. Aim directly at the mark, and the aiming alone might throw you off. Instead, I thought, adulthood could only be reached by a Zen-like, circuitous path.
Where was Celeste Perron when I needed her?
For Perron, the author of this summer's delightful "Playing House: A Starter Guide to Being a Grown-Up," achieving adulthood turns out to be both a little less magical and a lot more practical than I thought it was. Divided into six chapters, "Playing House" offers basic advice for 20-something women on home decorating, food, drinks, hostessing, and keeping house. Perron's premise is that young women all too often use their homes as pit stops for sleep and wardrobe changes, and as a consequence are woefully unversed in the simple but essential domestic skills. Like most how-to books, Perron's can veer toward the obvious (in a sidebar on feng shui decorating, for example, she instructs readers: "If a houseplant dies, replace it with a living one."). But her guide is also filled with advice — much of it from experts — that may be as useful to the seasoned (even over-seasoned) homemaker as it is essential to the novice.
In the first chapter, Perron describes how to set the stage. With pointers from decorators and store owners, she discusses in detail how to create a color scheme, carpet a room, choose curtains, pick and arrange furniture and lighting, decorate efficient but stylish bathrooms and kitchens, place photographs and paintings in their proper places, and even personalize the scent.
Once you've got the stage set, you'll presumably need some sustenance, and Perron's next two chapters focus on food and drink. The subjects range from buying the right pots and pans to various cooking methods to helpful recipes (including a basic formula for omelets and a recipe for lemon custard). Instructions on tasting, identifying, choosing, serving, and storing wine soon follow. Perron also provides recipes for drinks, from the simple Margarita to the fashionable Buddhadrop. As she puts it: "Now that you've left behind the frat-party, kamikaze-shot era of your life, you need to learn how to really savor a drink. The secret to this lies in picking the right drink for the right moment."
Though Perron suggests that even a perennial loner can benefit from having a more sophisticated environment and things in the cupboard, it's clear that the big payoff she has in mind comes with the company. In the fourth chapter, the reader therefore finds Perron's tips for both party planning and hostessing. In the party-planning realm, she reviews the best ways to make a guest list, send enthralling invitations, and enhance a room with flowers. As for hostessing, Perron gives instructions on choosing music, making good first impressions, the importance of cloth napkins, and the right number of hors d'hoeuvres. The penultimate chapter is about housekeeping: routines, methods of cleaning, and essential materials. There's a catch-all chapter at the end with some final advice on flowers, money management, and manners. Each of the chapters also includes suggestions on sources, and the entire book is written with a realistic nod toward a tight budget.
Perron, who is a Los Angeles-based veteran style editor of "Cosmopolitan," writes with the breezy confidence and persuasive practicality of generations of Cosmo girls. (Indeed, the words "fab," "pad," and "delish" seem to have made a comeback.) Some of her advice begs the question of just how and where the modern girl (let alone boy, but that's another question — perhaps even another book) has been growing up. Do women in their early twenties really not know that they're supposed to separate whites from darks in the laundry? Or that they should empty the pockets of their clothes before washing them? Have we been sheltering and coddling to such an extent that our girls now need to be told, "Rather than looking at budgeting and being financially responsible as a bummer, try to see them as habits that allow you to have more fun"? But leaving the extremes aside, it is undeniable — and regrettable — that the passed-down household tips and grandmotherly secrets have thinned a lot in recent generations. And with most young women's first order of business being to get and keep a job, it's no surprise that some of these skills are hard to come by.
The book's illustrations, done by Kerrie Hess, are charming and, with their cut-out-style figures, perfectly evoke the mixture of retro and modern that the book's advice is meant to convey. With a little luck, its readers, in post-Fifties oppression, post-Seventies liberation, post-Nineties workaholism, may actually be able to achieve just that.
Lisa Grunwald is a freelance journalist, a former contributing editor for Life magazine, and former features editor of Esquire. She is the author of the novels "New Year's Eve," " The Theory of Everything," and "Summer." Her most recent novel, "Whatever Makes You Happy," was published in May by Random House. She is a summer resident of Tisbury.
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