As Christmas approaches, AD joins Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Derek Blasberg, and more as they decorate and cook in preparation for the holiday season. Level up your hosting game as you learn how to set the perfect holiday table with interior designer Noz Nozawa and make a delicious meringue tumble with Chef Jeremy Lee.
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00:00Hi, it's Derek Blasberg.
00:12This is my friend Rosie Huntington-Whiteley's house.
00:14It's a week before Christmas and she hasn't decorated a thing, but I'm here to save the
00:18day with a holiday in a box.
00:22So I'm going to order a holiday in a box.
00:34So this is the Pied-É-Résistance.
00:35Do you think it's big enough?
00:37I think it's just right.
00:39I can tell you can't wait to decorate this tree, but I think the first rule of decorating
00:45is have a drink first.
00:46That's fine by me.
00:47Shall we have some eggnog?
00:48Let's.
00:49Do you want me to stir yours?
00:57There you go.
00:58All right, so this will be our first eggnog experience.
01:01By the way, this looks really foul.
01:04Cheers.
01:05Cheers.
01:06It's very creamy.
01:10It's definitely sweet and creamy.
01:11It's like drinking mayonnaise with rum.
01:14Have you ever decorated a gingerbread man?
01:16In my adult life.
01:21Here's my elegant cookie.
01:23Here's my snow angel cookie.
01:27Are we wrapping some gifts?
01:28Let's wrap some presents.
01:30I'm going to wrap the guitar whilst you wrap the rubber duck.
01:43Guess what mine is.
01:44Guess what mine is.
01:46Presents wrapped.
01:49And now I have to decorate a tree.
01:50Let's get started.
01:53Hold that.
01:54It's called teamwork.
01:56There's no I in Christmas.
01:58Well, technically there is.
02:07I have a thing for owls.
02:09I love owls.
02:10Who likes owls?
02:14Did you get it?
02:18So the last thing in the box, the hideous Christmas sweater.
02:23Oh, fabulous.
02:26Oh, maybe you need this one.
02:28Very elegant.
02:34You look strangely...
02:36Chic?
02:37Chic.
02:38Would you say the same thing about me?
02:40You look like a middle-aged...
02:43Merry Christmas, Rosie.
02:45Merry Christmas.
02:46I'm sorry.
02:47Last thing, topper.
02:50Try this wicker star.
02:55Oh, wow, look how that clips on.
02:58Ta-da!
02:59Oh, wow, that's much more elegant.
03:01Does it feel like Christmas?
03:02It feels like Christmas, finally.
03:05All right, so I've gotten you all ready for Christmas.
03:07Thank you, Derek.
03:08Thank you for coming.
03:10And now...
03:12Fabulous tree.
03:14I love it.
03:15It looks fantastic.
03:17Bye-bye.
03:21All right, this elf is out of here.
03:23Thanks for all the elf esteem.
03:32As a great dear Italian friend of mine once said,
03:34isn't being Scottish in a cook an oxymoron?
03:37And I was like, right, that is it.
03:46When did I realize this is what I wanted to do?
03:48Oh, Lord, by this I think you mean the profession of cooking.
03:53God, I wish it was a profession.
03:54It's about time it was recognized as such.
03:58I was on my way to art college
04:00to follow in my father's footsteps
04:02and my brother's footsteps
04:03and my grandfather's footsteps
04:04and to make some pocket money along the way.
04:06I became a waiter.
04:07I was an absolute rubbish waiter,
04:09just dropped everything all the time
04:10and gossiped endlessly
04:11because they were all mum and dad's friends.
04:13And instead of sacking me, they put me in the kitchen.
04:16Before you could bat an eyelid,
04:17I was there with my tall hat and a white neckerchief
04:20and a floor-to-ceiling apron,
04:22serving an apprenticeship.
04:26And with that, today's pudding, meringue tumbles.
04:35Because the scullery is tucked away at the back of the flat,
04:38to optimize and have the best fun
04:40is just to move this cockamamie funny little bench out,
04:44which is a sort of little magic carpet of a cook's bench.
04:49I chose the meringue for Christmas because
04:52it doesn't level you quite like the way the cannonball
04:56of the proverbial Christmas pudding often does,
04:59never eaten or looked at askance.
05:02What we do is take a dozen eggs, sugar.
05:06I like Ivy House farm cream because they are incredible.
05:09An apricot compote made by simmering
05:12halved apricots, stone removed, in sugar.
05:16Again, the same, the very compote,
05:18which is made by cooking black currants
05:20and red currants and blackberries in sugar
05:23until literally they just collapse.
05:25Custard and then some chopped pistachios and almonds
05:29and a final dusting of icing sugar.
05:31Bob's your uncle.
05:34And so without further ado, we crack a dozen eggs.
05:40Your bowl must be scrupulously clean and dry
05:44because if it's not, the egg whites are quite volatile.
05:48What we then do is weigh these.
05:51Two, eight, two.
05:55I'd love to say I had opened Corvallis,
05:58but as it was founded in 1927,
06:02that would be quite something to say
06:04I was celebrating my centenary.
06:07I'd had a very long, very happy tenure
06:10at the Design Museum on Shad Thames,
06:13but it was coming to an end
06:15with the moving of the Design Museum to Kensington.
06:19It was at the stroke of midnight, 2011, 2012,
06:23I partnered up with Sam and Eddie Hart
06:26and became chateaunein of this incredible building
06:31in Soho with the boys.
06:37So what we'll need to do are two bowls of sugar,
06:40each one weighing 282 grams exactly.
06:45As well as a scrupulously clean bowl,
06:47you're going to need a scrupulously clean whisk.
06:50And of course you can do this by hand if you wish,
06:53but you will need the shoulders of a titan to do it,
06:57and our dear friend the KitchenAid is just that.
07:01The kitchen is the heart of the home,
07:03which is a cliche, but it's a cliche for a very good reason.
07:07It's sitting here and it's, is it channeling, Mum?
07:10You know, reading happy memories, times past,
07:13you know, with a coffee and a pile of books,
07:16thinking what dishes you can cook,
07:18what's in the fridge, what can you get.
07:24So once you start making the meringues, you don't stop.
07:28Your foot is to the pedal,
07:30and what you're after are very stiff peaks.
07:34And then with the machine still going at full tilt,
07:38start adding the sugar.
07:41The second half of sugar you fold in.
07:44And I would say, I would say that's just about done.
07:50This is the stiffness you want to achieve for a meringue.
07:53If it's not that, it'll go liquid.
07:56And also the other great way to test,
07:58you just put it on your head,
08:00and if it doesn't fall out and make a terrible mess, hurrah!
08:03If it does fall out and make a terrible mess, oops.
08:07These will go into a preheated oven at 180°C,
08:12which you immediately then turn down to 120°C.
08:22And then in with the second tray.
08:24Now these are going to go in the oven for an hour,
08:27and what is vital at this stage is to make sure
08:30that the sugar is completely dissolved.
08:33An hour.
08:34And what is vital at this stage
08:36is remembering to turn the oven down to 120°C.
08:42How would I describe my cooking style?
08:44Golly gee, well, coming from a home
08:48where food mattered so much,
08:52it has been an extraordinary journey,
08:55cooking with very, I really did luck out
08:58with who I got to work with.
09:00And I, after sailing the French Ship in Scotland
09:03and coming south to London,
09:05I ended up working with Simon Hopkinson at Mobendum
09:10and Alastair Little at his eponymous restaurant
09:13on Fifth Street in Soho.
09:15And they were just at the forefront of keep it simple.
09:21It's just good food for good food,
09:23because that's what I love most in life,
09:25is to just get pals round a table,
09:27plonk them down and plonk food in front of them.
09:33And behold the meringues.
09:37And you can see they've turned,
09:39and the test of a meringue cooked hot
09:42is when you lift them off the paper.
09:46There we go.
09:50The best construction of our,
09:52and it is a construction,
09:54are liberal amounts of cream.
09:55I think you need to be very Scottish for this.
09:57Otherwise, apart from anything else,
09:59it like baits the meringues.
10:01Also gives a very good holding quality to all this.
10:09Gosh, do I like hosting Christmas?
10:11Lordy, I'm not sure I ever,
10:13oh, actually I did host a Christmas once.
10:16And did lay a table and did all the rest of it.
10:18And it was a truffle risotto,
10:20because it was Christmas, it was just two of us.
10:23Just quite sweet.
10:24No, I tend to go to my sisters,
10:29or very dear friends,
10:31and I'm not even allowed in the kitchen.
10:33Whenever I get found even trying to wash up a teaspoon,
10:35it's a civil war.
10:37And I've learned not to even try anymore.
10:46One of the great things about doing meringues
10:47of all shapes and sizes and randoms
10:49is you get all these fissures
10:51and ravines and rivulets
10:53that let all the compotes and custards and creams pour down.
10:59And then to start, if you want to add berries,
11:01this is the time to do it.
11:04No symmetry, for it is the work of the devil.
11:07Hit as many notes as possible,
11:09so it's pure cacophony.
11:12I can almost hear the sleigh bells.
11:16And there you have it, your Christmas tumble.
11:19Everything you ever wanted on one plate,
11:21and all of it too.
11:24This beautifully ironed tablecloth
11:27that I've just crumpled outrageously.
11:42As I've been very, very, very generous with the custard,
11:46this is going to make the most marvellous mess
11:48on the table and on the plate.
11:50But it's Christmas,
11:51and I think we should go at it with sheer gusto.
11:55And in we go.
11:58And make sure you go right to the heart of the matter,
12:00because the whole point of a meringue is it has everything,
12:03and all the fonds on the outside,
12:04but all the goop is in the middle.
12:07Full of goodness.
12:09It's a Christmas mess.
12:11There you go, my dear.
12:12That's all for you.
12:16Can the cook put his money where his mouth is?
12:18As there's Christmas on a plate,
12:20or celebrations, more to the point.
12:29Not too shabby, darlings.
12:31Happy Christmas.
12:49Behold, the dining room table.
12:51She's cute.
12:52It's the holidays.
12:53It's her big day.
12:55I'm an interior designer,
12:56and I'm going to walk you through
12:57how to decorate this table.
12:59I've put together three different tablescapes,
13:01and I'm going to show you
13:02how to achieve those three different looks.
13:18Say you've inherited your grandmother's silverware.
13:21We're going to build a look around the silverware.
13:23This whole set is giving, for me,
13:25just iconic, super ornamental, traditional.
13:28Silver is a live finish.
13:30A living finish is one where the actual surface
13:33is going to change with exposure to oxygen,
13:36or exposure to different surfaces and chemicals
13:38in our environment.
13:39She's alive, y'all.
13:41She's changing.
13:42So the next tip is developing a color palette.
13:44I want to build around a tartan tablecloth.
13:47Tartan, to me, is iconic holiday.
13:49It's red in this case, and it's so nubby,
13:52and the wool is so cozy,
13:53and everything about it is just festive to me.
13:56We have this really traditional china.
13:58I'm deciding between this pattern and this white.
14:02The thing is that I want to do holiday,
14:04and I want to do traditional holiday,
14:06and this pattern china clashes with the tartan.
14:09That means white plates.
14:12Generally speaking, when you fold something,
14:14you're going to get creases.
14:16You can run the crease along where the table edge is,
14:19and no one will ever know.
14:21Generally, once something has dried, crinkled,
14:25you need to get it a little bit damp
14:27in order to be able to smooth this out.
14:29The wetness gets the creases out because,
14:31basically, if it has dried in a certain direction,
14:34you need something that allows the fabric
14:36to reshape itself, and it's not perfect.
14:39Not everything's perfect.
14:40We're not perfect.
14:41We're humans.
14:42We're beautifully imperfect,
14:43so we're just going to let her be,
14:44and you'll never know the difference.
14:46We're going for a traditional table setting,
14:48and there are so many old-school rules about it.
14:51In fact, there are even entire books
14:53that teach you all the ways that you are doing things wrong.
14:56First, to indicate where the chairs go,
14:58I'm going to choose either a charger or a placemat.
15:01Since I want my white plates to stand out,
15:03I'm going to go with the charger.
15:05We're doing just a dinner plate and a salad plate.
15:07We also have a butter plate,
15:09and that's going to go to the left.
15:11When it comes to silverware,
15:13it's pretty much outside in.
15:15What do you eat with first?
15:16Salad starts, and then we have entree,
15:18so that means that the salad is on the outside.
15:20It's also the baby four,
15:21so things kind of get bigger and taller
15:23as they go toward the plates.
15:25Spoon, and then your entree knife.
15:27Blades always go toward your plates.
15:30I love a white napkin for a traditional table setting.
15:33It is connoting of cleanness.
15:35There's lots of different ways to handle the napkin.
15:38You can have it just folded
15:39and placed neatly on top of your plates.
15:41You can also put the napkin under your silverware,
15:44but I personally love a ring.
15:46I love a ring.
15:47You take a square napkin,
15:48you fold it into a triangle,
15:51and then you basically roll it,
15:54almost like a croissant.
15:55I don't know.
15:56I've never baked.
15:57And then you put the ring over it.
16:00It allows you to have kind of a dramatic
16:02and long napkin experience.
16:05That's very important for my guests' napkin experiences.
16:08The reason I like doing it this way
16:10is there's a beautiful symmetry
16:11that you create on the table.
16:13Next up, glassware.
16:15In a traditional place setting,
16:16there is a different glass for every drink.
16:18Red wine and white wine glasses are shaped differently
16:21because red wines generally have a much larger bouquet
16:24and take a bit more time and more oxygen to wake up.
16:26You can either form the glasses in a linear fashion
16:29or in a grouping.
16:30If you're serving champagne,
16:31you can choose between a coupe and a flute.
16:34But for today, we're going to use the flute.
16:36We actually need to get rid of this coupe glass.
16:39We have a lot of centerpiece options here.
16:41I love fruit for a centerpiece
16:43because, one, it's very seasonal.
16:45It connotes freshness.
16:46And you can make it colorful.
16:48Fruit's colorful.
16:49Here we want to make sure
16:50that all of our metals are matching,
16:52so there's lots of options to choose from in silver.
16:54And between these two candlestick holders,
16:56I think I'm going to go with the individual candlesticks.
17:00And the reason for that is because then I can have it
17:03sit one on either side of my fruit dish.
17:08Another pro tip, non-scented candles.
17:10Very important.
17:11If you get a fragrance candle,
17:13it will compete with the smell of the food on the table.
17:17Choices.
17:19Um, we're going to go with this one.
17:21It's cute.
17:22I love the idea that the salt and the sugar
17:24were part of the same set.
17:26A lot of traditional dishware comes in a set.
17:29And then don't forget a water pitcher.
17:31This is very adorable.
17:33And it's kind of fun.
17:34I love that it's a squiggle-squangle.
17:36It almost feels like the inverse of my candlestick.
17:39The one thing about a centerpiece
17:40is don't make them so tall, whether they're florals,
17:42whether they're fruit.
17:43If it's too tall, I can't see you from across the table.
17:47So that's traditional.
18:01Traditional was very much about pulling from sets.
18:04The salt and pepper shakers match with the sugar,
18:07which matches with the plates.
18:08On the flip side, mix and match is the art and science
18:12of adorning an entire table or a tablescape
18:15with lots of items that go together
18:18and feel like they make sense together,
18:20but they're not all part of the same set.
18:22As a jumping-off point,
18:23one of the things that we can do is starting with a menu.
18:26Design your tablescape
18:27around what you're going to serve that night.
18:29I personally love designing around shared food.
18:32I love a family-style meal
18:33where things are coming off of big bowls,
18:36big pots on the table,
18:37and then everyone sort of serves themselves,
18:40and that's what we're going to do today.
18:42When I'm starting a modern table setting,
18:44I do think about the tablecloth first.
18:46It is sort of the foundation
18:47of everything that goes on top of it.
18:49I went with a neutral tablecloth
18:50because I want everything else to really stand out.
18:53Each of these modern options for placemats
18:55are pretty bold and fabulous.
18:57What I love about texture and design
18:59is that it allows you to not have to rely
19:01only on color and pattern
19:02to make something visually interesting.
19:04This is both experientially lovely
19:06because you can touch it and it's fun,
19:08and it's also a way to stay neutral
19:10but still be interesting.
19:11All three of these placemats are so much fun.
19:13I love this one for a more mellow, neutral overall vibe.
19:17I love the energy of this pattern,
19:18but I'm thinking that I really like this translucent one
19:21for all of my very special friends
19:23who are very messy and like to spill.
19:25Now we're choosing napkins.
19:26I like to use cloth napkins instead of paper napkins
19:29because it's more luxurious.
19:30It's more lovely and permanent and nice,
19:33and also it's sustainable.
19:34If you're serving great food,
19:35you wanna make sure that every part
19:37of what your guests touch is fantastic.
19:39A tip for how to choose your napkins,
19:41take the material and rub it against the inside of your arm,
19:45not your fingertips, but the inside of your arm.
19:48If it's too scratchy here,
19:49you're gonna hate wiping your face with it.
19:51I'm gonna choose this one.
19:52I love how the purple works off
19:54of all the other colors I have going on so far.
19:56Now we're choosing dinnerware.
19:58When shopping for modern dishware,
20:00look for handmade, look for the craftsmanship,
20:02and in fact, sometimes you'll even see bowls
20:05where the finger from the pottery wheel is shown.
20:08These plates are both very modern,
20:10very neutral, but very different.
20:11I'm gonna choose the stoneware.
20:13I like that very much for what I'm going to be serving,
20:16and I love how the colors are all playing
20:18with one another right now.
20:19I'm also going to bring in a menu and a place card.
20:23If you're hosting a dinner party
20:24where people might not know each other,
20:26I always like to put the name on both sides
20:28so that everyone knows where they're sitting
20:30and everyone knows who they're sitting across from.
20:33Also a great tip
20:34if you don't remember people's names very easily.
20:37Who's Maria? Not me.
20:38So now, drinkware.
20:40You might think of drinkware as clear,
20:42but actually there's a long and fabulous history
20:45of translucent, colored drinkware.
20:48Colorful drinkware actually has a very interesting history,
20:51starting with depression glass.
20:53That was a way to distinguish from crystal,
20:56as we saw before.
20:57There were different colors.
20:58In fact, even neon green made with uranium.
21:02She was radioactive, and she still is.
21:05Isotopes last forever.
21:07I actually love this amber glass,
21:09but I already know that we're going to be using
21:11this amber decanter, and that's too matchy.
21:14We're mixing.
21:15I'm gonna pick this smoked gray.
21:19To be totally honest,
21:20there's so many times that I break or my friends break
21:25my stemware or my glasses, and that's okay.
21:28As long as things are mix and match
21:30and something breaks, it's not a big deal
21:32because it already didn't match with anything else.
21:36Ma'am?
21:37Maria is back, y'all.
21:39She's pissed.
21:40And next, serveware.
21:41Serveware is such a good centerpiece
21:43because it's casual,
21:44and it's about everyone sharing from the same vessel.
21:47Since we're serving pasta,
21:49I love the idea of the pasta being placed on the table
21:52in the pot it was cooked in,
21:53rather than the florals or a fruit bowl
21:56being the star of the show.
21:58The food is the star of the show.
21:59And it also has the same kind of texture
22:01as the earthenware plates that we're going with.
22:03I'm gonna serve my salad in this pink bowl.
22:06I also really love mixing metals in a modern table setting,
22:09so this is brass,
22:10and then we've actually got silver silverware on the table.
22:13I love a tiny bowl and a tiny ramekin.
22:15Anytime you're gonna serve anything
22:17that comes in a package,
22:18take it out of the packaging
22:19and put it in an actual dish.
22:22A few of these items I actually picked up from my travels,
22:25and that's such a nice way
22:26to share your travel experiences with guests.
22:28Another lovely thing to do
22:29is to pour your wine into a decanter
22:31and serve it there.
22:32And since we're serving wine at the table,
22:34how about a really fun corkscrew?
22:36I don't know how to use it.
22:37Somebody else opens my wine for me,
22:39but it's really cute.
22:41When I'm styling, I really like candles
22:43that are kind of fun.
22:44Funny textures are really fun.
22:46This is very clearly a mix and match.
22:48You've got clear glass with colorful glass,
22:50different textures, shiny and glossy,
22:52and all kinds of berries and nuts all over the table.
22:59Next, I'm gonna show you all
23:01what it feels like to fully commit to a theme.
23:05And this theme is Christmas.
23:07Kitsch to me is humor at the table and in decor.
23:12Just in general,
23:13kitsch is a way for you to be able to be tacky,
23:15but on purpose and with style.
23:17I'm starting centerpiece first this time.
23:19There's a lot going on on this table.
23:21A lot of different centerpiece ideas that are possible.
23:24In general, things in a bowl
23:26are very iconic to a centerpiece.
23:28You could put lemons in a bowl,
23:30ornaments in a bowl,
23:31wine corks, pine cones,
23:33seashells that you found on vacation.
23:35Bringing the outdoors in,
23:36especially in the wintertime,
23:38thinking of things like this lovely stump slice.
23:41And another thing,
23:42when you're shopping for a Christmas tree,
23:44you can always grab some of the extra branches,
23:46the boughs,
23:47and lay them out on the table as another centerpiece.
23:50I'm definitely going to choose
23:52Señor Nutcracker.
23:53I like that guy.
23:54I like this because it's another checker element.
23:57I have to go with an element of cabbageware,
23:59so I'm gonna choose this lemon bowl.
24:00Cabbageware is a vintage item
24:03that just keeps resurfacing.
24:05It's funny, sparkly, and delightful.
24:07Literally looking like a cabbage.
24:11I'm really excited about this place setting.
24:13I remember this pattern china.
24:14I think it looks really good over this gold charger,
24:17over this red tablecloth.
24:18And since there's a lot going on in this tablescape,
24:21we've got more of a simple, minimalist glassware,
24:24but it's still in a really modern and playful silhouette.
24:26We're also mixing metals aggressively at this table.
24:29We've got silver flatware,
24:31we have a gold charger,
24:32we have gold rim patternware,
24:34and then we also have these funny,
24:35little snowman-shaped silver salt-and-pepper shakers.
24:39And it wouldn't be a kitsch Christmas
24:41without a kitsch Christmas tree napkin holder.
24:44How cute is that?
24:45The other thing you can do with kitsch
24:46is have super-themed paper napkins.
24:48And I love a name card that can actually be
24:50a cute little party favor to take home,
24:52and it's so cute.
24:53This table setting is super kitsch,
24:55it's very Christmas,
24:56it's very pattern-heavy,
24:58and it's funny.
24:59Like, I wanna sit at this table
25:01and have a funny dinner with funny friends
25:03and laugh.
25:04Ha ha ha!
25:05I hope what you take away from this video
25:07is that anything that you have
25:08totally belongs on the table.
25:10Just think about what you wanna share
25:11with your friends and loved ones.
25:13Anything goes, nothing's too serious.
25:15And if it's feeling too serious,
25:16remember that any of the rules
25:18of traditional, modern, or kitsch
25:20are just guideposts.
25:21You really can't go wrong.
25:22It's really about food and company
25:24and sharing good meals with good loved ones,
25:27and everything else is just design.