Episode Details

On this episode of Five Rules for the Good Life, I sit down with author, culinary producer, and certified legendary party person, Courtney McBroom. We talk about her new cookbook Party People: A Cookbook for Creative Celebrations, co-written with her best friend and fellow party person, Brie Larson. The book is a love letter to creative celebration, making space for joy, and giving yourself permission to host however you want. Courtney shares her Five Rules for How to Celebrate the Little Things, from picking the perfect music and lighting, to being open to messing things up, and to aligning good vibes with small moments. Whether you're a solo host or part of a party-planning duo, this one’s packed with smart, elevated, heartfelt advice for making any gathering feel good.

Celebrating the little things has kept me grounded these past few months. After the fire, after the stress, after everything, I found myself holding onto small joys more tightly than ever. A Tuesday night dinner with friends, a good tennis session with my kids, and a nice stroll with my wife & the dogs. These tiny moments of gathering have shifted my whole outlook, and Courtney gets that better than anyone. This episode is a reminder that we don’t need an excuse to connect, only a little intention. I walked away inspired to keep throwing parties, especially it’s just my family and me making pizza in the backyard.

Hello, and welcome to Five Rules for the Good Life. I'm your host, Darin Bresnitz. Today, I sit down with author, culinary producer, and legendary party person Courtney McBroom, whose new book Party People: A Cookbook for Creative Celebrations, that she co-wrote with her best friend and fellow party person Brie Larson, is out everywhere October 23rd. First, today she shares her five rules on how to celebrate the little things. We chat about how to give yourself grace when hosting, to be open to trying new things and not afraid to mess them up, and how a great aesthetic is just as important as great food. So let's get into the rules.

Courtney, so good to see you. Congratulations on your book, Party People. Thank you. It's a gorgeous book. It's a fun book. It's one that makes me want to open my doors and welcome in the people. That's the whole reason why we wrote it. So I'm glad I worked on you.

In your mind, what defines a party person? Here's the great thing about being a party person—it’s that literally everyone is a party person. It takes all kinds of things. It's genetically coded in our DNA to get together with other people and be around each other in real life. And so I would argue that even if you're sitting here before me today thinking to yourself, "I'm not a party person," I would argue that that's incorrect. It really is a state of mind.

You wrote this book and have thrown quite a few parties with your best friend, Brie Larson. Throwing a party by yourself versus throwing a party with another person, even writing a book by yourself versus writing with another person, is a different approach. How do you compromise when throwing a party with a partner?

Working with Brie specifically, we haven't really had to compromise. Because we've been doing this for years since we met, throwing parties together. We're both hardcore party people to the max. There was no real compromise so far. I mean, knock on w