I grew up in Mississippi, where entertaining at home was a point of pride for almost every woman I knew. Since there wasn’t much to do there and nowhere to go, you had to make your own fun. So, early on, I learned a hospitality catechism from my mother and grandmothers. Articles of faith included how to make homemade mayonnaise; why any good hostess should keep a bottle of Pickapeppa Sauce in the pantry (to pour over cream cheese for an instant dip served with Triscuits); which Junior League cookbooks should be in any respectable culinary library (Charleston and Jackson); when to use paper napkins (never, we were instructed).

But no one taught me more about entertaining and living well than Julia Reed, who was my dearest friend. My husband, Jon, was often amused and sometimes wearied by the hours-long conversations Julia and I would have planning the many parties we threw in the early days of our friendship in New York in the '90s. He would roll his eyes when—yacking on our landline telephones—we would weigh the merits of crabmeat maison vs. crabmeat mornay or discuss our floral color scheme. One day, Jon quipped that our obsession with party-giving had led him to coin a new name for his two favorite Mississippi women: The Crabmeat Caucus.

"Julia and Keith were the founding members," he once wrote, "capable of endless conversation—though they mostly talked over each other, much to my mystification—about the details of, say, asparagus and cheese straws. They loved each other madly and deeply (emphasis on the ‘mad’ part). And they loved to bring other people into their orbit."

I was a sort of junior member of the caucus, not unlike a sorority pledge. And in those years I was happy to study at the side of one of the most effortless party-givers I've ever met.  

Here are a few of the essential lessons I learned from Julia (many passed down from her own mother, the formidable Judy Reed of Nashville and Greenville) and which I hope my daughters are learning from me. 

Cook Food that Tastes Good

So many parties in New York in the '90s were all about tall food, visual food, food plated to look good. Julia and I regularly found ourselves at dinners where things looked fabulous but didn't taste particularly good. I remember one night our hostess served steamed Chilean Seabass (which for a few years was all the rage) without a sauce and with a medley of very colorful but tasteless vegetables to the side. Riding down the elevator, Julia turned to me and said, "I am starving," and by 10:30 pm, we were tucked into a booth at a neighborhood Italian bar eating fried calamari and drinking red wine.

So whenever either of us had a dinner party coming up, Julia always reminded me of the first principle of entertaining at home: cook something you actually want to eat. Don’t give in to the temptation to make the plate look pretty. It’s much more delicious—and more considerate of your guests—to serve a hearty beef stew with a simple lemony salad and crusty French bread than to go in for something a food blog or Instagram tells you is the thing.

Do Your Own Flowers 

Most of us do not have the training of a professional florist, and even though it makes perfect sense to splurge on florals for a big party or a wedding, a dinner party or a weekend barbecue don’t really call for the big guns. People are so afraid of messing up or not being all that good at putting flowers in a vase, but it’s not really that intimidating if you can let go of the idea that they have to be perfect.

One of the things Julia and I loved most about giving a party in New York together was the early-morning trip to the wholesale flower market, which runs the length of West 28th Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues. We'd wake up before 6 am, grab coffee and a cab downtown and hit the Dutch Flower – if you ask me, the most magical shop in New York. The flowers in season set the color palette for the evening, and china and linens often followed suit. If you don’t live in a city with a wholesale market, Trader Joe's and Whole Foods have great seasonal flowers, and there’s always the backyard. In summer, I take my floral snippers in my car and cut butterfly week, passion flower, cattails and Queen Anne’s lace from the ditches on the side of the road. I call these my “road kill” arrangements.

Store-bought is Okay

Julia was a perfectionist and always wanted to cook everything herself. That was all well and good when we were running on time. But most often we weren’t, and cooking everything ourselves often made dinner very late to the table. Sometimes, despite the great conversation and booze, people would get grumpy when things ran late. So over time we decided there were a few things we could dial in on the principle that it's better to keep things moving along and allow your guests to go home if they have to. That usually ended up meaning cheating on dessert - Heath bar cookies from Fresh Market with Jeni's Ice Cream became a favorite. And Julia was a long-time fan of picking up Popeye’s or Publix fried chicken and serving it buffet style with delicious homemade sides.

Function in Disaster, Finish in Style

The unofficial motto of Julia’s alma mater, the Madeira School, "Function in Disaster, Finish in Style," were words she lived by. She even had cups made up for her 40th birthday party with the motto printed on the side, and for anyone who has committed to memory lines from Julia's many incredible columns for Garden & Gun, these are familiar words. It seems we needed them more often than not when we entertaining together.

One of the last parties Julia and I threw was six years ago this May in New Orleans. We were celebrating the publication of her new book, Julia Reed's New Orleans, and friends had come into town from all over. The venue was our friends' gorgeous garden on Magazine Street, and the plan was to have a magical dinner under the stars complete with Japanese silk lanterns hung above long tables covered in mis-matched hand-blocked Indian prints with odd-patterned China and colored glassware. No tent was ordered because, well, we never considered it would rain.

By midday the weather turned against us, and the heavens opened. It was prime wedding season, and there were no tents to be found at the 11th hour. Rather than scrap our original vision, cancel the dinner and go with a much more reasonable indoor cocktail party, Julia insisted we carry on with our plan. Function in disaster.

Eventually we talked someone into renting us damaged tent - at exorbitant cost. The sides went up, tables and chairs went down, and as guests started to arrive, Julia and I found ourselves shod in very high heels maneuvering giant rented shop vacuums across the lawn in an attempt to soak up as much water as possible. It was a muddy mess.

We were exhausted and on edge by the time the party got going. But soon the rain began to subside, laughter rose in the tent, we filled our champagne glasses and gave each other a quick toast. But it was too soon to let out a sigh of relief. No sooner than the first course had been put down, we looked through the flimsy sides of the tent to see swarms of enormous flying termites headed our way. It was a vision out of Exodus.

But as always when entertaining with Julia, our bad luck soon became a source of hilarity. The termites were on best behavior in the upper regions of the tent, the champagne kept flowing, women removed their high heels and let their feet get muddy. The food arrived. The tent filled with full-throated laughter, and I looked around and realized that we had pulled it off. Function in disaster. Finish in Style.

For years I thought of our adventures in entertaining as frivolous. When people would tell us we were good at it, I’d roll my eyes and think “now that’s a trivial talent.” But as I've grown older, I've come to look at it through a new lens. For those of us who have the time and wherewithal to entertain the people we love with the people we love, what better way to cast aside the sadness and heaviness of the world. Opening your doors to others, putting out a fine spread, welcoming people with a hug and a glass of cold champagne, those are pure expressions of friendship and generosity and grace. And to get to do that beside a friend you love for many many years is one of the greatest gifts of all.