Entertaining With shows how a party came together7xm, with expert advice on everything from menus to music.

baba slots

Growing up in Orange County, Calif., Beverly Nguyen, 34, always celebrated Lunar New Year with her family, a custom that her parents brought with them when they emigrated from Vietnam in 1984. When Nguyen moved to New York City in 2010, she in turn carried the tradition with her, sometimes inviting a few friends to her apartment for takeout and other years hosting more elaborate gatherings. This year’s party — a dinner for about 30 people at the TriBeCa events space 102 Franklin Street on the Friday night before the holiday — ended up being particularly meaningful. A week earlier, Nguyen’s paternal grandmother, Dương Thị Hoan, had died at the age of 95, and the loss, Nguyen told her guests, led her to reflect on the importance of “celebrating one another.” Hoan, who was a mother of nine, had a “natural instinct to come together that I think she passed down,” said Nguyen, whose four-year-old downtown New York store, Beverly’s, sells entertaining essentials, including tableware and cooking tools. “Food heals everybody,” she added, “and I think the best thing to do when you’re grieving and emotional is to feed people.”

ImageThe main dishes included vegetarian glass noodles with shiitake mushrooms and bok choy.Credit...David ChowImageNguyen in the kitchen at 102 Franklin.Credit...David Chow

Earlier that week, Nguyen had traveled to Orange County for the funeral and took the opportunity to shop for ingredients like ginger candies,phl63 gaming herbs, sticky rice cakes and pickled daikon at the same Vietnamese grocery stores she frequented as a child. She also brushed up on her culinary skills: “One of my aunts has a restaurant, and I ended up going into the kitchen and learning to cook egg rolls in the deep fryer,” she says.

ImageTwo silver trays of cigarettes were put out for guests at the beginning of the night.Credit...David Chow

In the weeks leading up to Têt, as the Lunar New Year is called in Vietnamese, Nguyen also prepared by partaking in some traditional rituals. She cleaned her apartment from top to bottom in order to “absorb fresh energy” into her home, she said, and made a point of avoiding any big life or business changes, like taking on new clients or signing contracts. (The period before Têt is considered an inauspicious time to do so.) She also set up an altar in her apartment to honor her ancestors, arranging family photographs, oranges, bottles of alcohol and incense around a cherry blossom centerpiece. The night before the holiday, she always makes sure to take out the trash, wash her hair and arrive home by midnight — all on the advice of her mother. “If you’re out, then you’ll be out all next year,” she had warned Nguyen when she was a child. Luckily, because her party preceded the actual holiday by a few days, Nguyen and her guests didn’t have to abide by that rule.

ImageThe creative director Kate Berry (center) catching up with the publicist Cynthia Leung. Guests were told to wear red if they liked.Credit...David Chow

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber? Log in.

Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

Overall, violent crime fell 3 percent and property crime fell 2.6 percent in 2023, with burglaries down 7.6 percent and larceny down 4.4 percent. Car thefts, though7xm, continue to be an exception, rising more than 12 percent from the year before.