Chili In July.

What?!?!?!  You may be asking the question, why are we hosting a dinner party that consists of a chili bar in July? Especially so close to the Fourth of July holiday. Because here in Myrtle Beach, we are experiencing monsoon weather with heavy rain every single day for the past week. There's something about heavy rain that makes a big pot of chili an easy menu for an intimate dinner party. We gave our guests a few options to dress up their bowls of chili with, sour cream, a nice sharp Wisconsin cheddar cheese (that we shredded right before our guests arrived), green onions, cilantro, and sliced limes.

Creating a dinner bar does not have to be fussy or time consuming. By serving all of the options on a single white platter it provides a simple and clean presentation for your guests to have easy access to all the different condiments. Dinner parties don't have to be fancy or elaborate. A few little touches can elevate your dinner from the every day experience to something with a little more depth. For this dinner party, one small detail we incorporated was adding paper flags to our drinking straws. And as we always say, your dinner party is really about the people around your table and not so much the way the table is dressed.