I started Elegant Affairs with the notion that I could provide top-shelf food and fabulous party planning that would make an event unforgettable. Today, I spend my days designing and hosting all kinds of events, from Hamptons backyard barbecues to chic New York Weddings. But my favorite events are still the ones I enjoy with my friends and family. This site is my way of giving you tricks and tools of my trade so that you can create your own amazing gatherings for friends and family at home, comfortably and confidently!

LET ME INSPIRE YOU!!!

Ingredients

• 2 pounds  ground beef
• 1 lrg can tomato juice
• 1 lrg can crushed tomatoes
• 2 cans kidney beans, drained and rinsed
• 1/2 cup Heinz chili sauce
• 1 1/2 cups chopped onion
• 1/4 cup chopped green bell pepper
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1/4 cup chili powder

Directions

1. Place ground beef in a large pan. Cook over medium-high heat until evenly brown. Drain, and set aside.
2. Saute your peppers and onions until translucent with a dash of oil in the pan that browned your beef and set aside.
3. In a large pot over high heat combine all ingredients. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low. Simmer for 1 1/2 hours.

Fall is the season of the squash, with pumpkin pies, jack-o-lanterns and plenty of pumpkin-flavored goodies being touted in stores and cafés. So if you’re in the market for a yummy hot dinner recipe, look no further than this Pumpkin Gnocchi!
Not only is it rich and satisfying, but with pumpkin puree, ricotta cheese and nutmeg as ingredients, this fall dish is sure to be a hit well into the winter months.

Ingredients:

1 cup pumpkin puree

1 cup ricotta cheese

1 ¾ cups flour

½ tsp mace or nutmeg

2 tsp salt

1 egg

1 egg yolk

½ Tbsp butter (unsalted)

½ Tbsp oil

Fresh sage (minced)

Directions:

Mix eggs, pumpkin puree and ricotta cheese until smooth. Add mace and salt and adjust to taste as needed. Fold in flour in thirds with spatula, then place flour mixture into piping bag with a large round tip. Let rest for 20 minutes.

Pipe out gnocchi onto a floured cutting board and roll gently in flour to coat the entire dough. Cut the gnocchi to your preferred size and place on a floured cookie sheet, and then place in the freezer for 10 minutes.

Blanch the gnocchi in boiling salted water until it floats. Add butter and oil to a hot nonstick sauté pan, and once butter is melted, add gnocchi to pan and sauté quickly to coat.

Garnish with fresh sage, serve and enjoy (serves 4)!

Photo Credit: Vala Thoroddsen courtesy Elegant Affairs

Andrea Correale is the President of Elegant Affairs, a five-star, full-service catering and event-planning company, which has been serving social, corporate and philanthropic clients across Manhattan, Long Island and the Hamptons for over the past decade. Having worked with clients likeBilly Joel, Russell Simmons, Ivana Trump, Mariah Carey and Natalie Cole, Elegant Affairs’ President Andrea Correale and her team know how to cater for the world’s most discriminating palates.

Elegant Affairs is the exclusive on-site caterer for The Player’s, the historic club in Gramercy Park in New York City, and the Nassau County Museum of Art, a stunning mansion on the Gold Coast of Long Island. Andrea is also a regular contributor to celebrations.com.

For further information you can also visit, elegantaffairscaterers.com.

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Skinny Cocktailshttp://www.shape.com/bride/diet-plans/delicious-healthy-wedding-cocktails-celebrity-wedding-planner-andrea-correale

By Maura Ewing

Many same-sex couples in New York have waited years, or even decades, to have their partnerships legally recognized. And now that it’s possible, they are pulling out the stops for their big day — which means big dollars for the wedding industry. Yes, the tidal wave of marriage celebrations will pass, but the expanded market is here to stay.
Here’s how three forward-thinking small business owners are handling the boom and keeping the revenue coming in:
Enhance your existing services
Road Concierge Inc., a New York City-based travel agency, is known in the Broadway community for its expertise in arranging accommodations for theatrical crews on the road. Though it specializes in entertainment travel, it has seen a large uptick in wedding requests, mostly from existing clients. But, Road Concierge, which makes about $750,000 in annual revenue, isn’t champing at the bit. “I don’t particularly want to go after the wedding industry as a whole, it’s fairly labor intensive,” says company president Lisa Morris.
To embrace the market of same-sex married couples without jumping into a new field, Morris plans to leverage the tools she already has in place. For example, a travel advisory to better inform same-sex spouses which states and cities will recognize their legal status, and the implications — such as hospital visitation rights — in states that don’t. “I want my business to be a great resource for the gay community, and of course to reach as many customers as possible.”
Know your assets
An order for a wedding party is great news for any men’s dress shirt vendor — particularly a wedding with two grooms. “We don’t ask if an order is for a gay marriage, but it’s safe to assume there are two grooms when we get an order for 10 or 12 groomsmen’s shirts,” says Tailor Threads co-founder, Allen Wei. The New York City-based company offers customized men’s dress shirts, and in its first four months of business has already grossed over $150,000 in revenue. It has started to see an increase of demand for male-dominated wedding parties, and is working to keep those numbers rising.
The company owners are pitching their product as a perfect one-stop-option for an all-male wedding party: Grooms can choose from more than 100 types of high-quality fabric, and create a unique or traditional look by mixing and matching collar, placket, and cuff styles. The website allows each groom and groomsmen to order a custom fit. To make the product even more enticing for grooms-to-be, Wei is making plans for special bulk wedding packages, and is working with a “Groupon-style” company to promote special deals such as a suit, shirt, and tie for a fixed price.
Keep the ball rolling
For seventeen years Elegant Affairs has been producing high-end weddings-and other celebratory events-across Long Island, Manhattan, and the Hamptons. “As soon as the legislation was passed I got a flurry of phone calls,” says company president, Andrea Correale. “It’s a shot in the arm for the catering and event industry to think about the new market that’s just opened.” Correale expects her wedding party business to increase by about 25% over the next year.
While Correale is enjoying the initial boom of extravagant affairs, she wants to remain the go-to person for the new market for years to come. “We’re taking this very seriously, and are increasing our marketing dollars for same-sex weddings, putting pictures of the events on our website, and blogging about it,” she says.
Rings Flickr photo courtesy of firemedic58 CC 2.0

Same-sex nuptials could boost New York economy, tourism revenue to tune of $400 million a year

BY OREV YANIV
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Sunday, July 24th 2011, 5:39 PM

Same-sex nuptials-kicked off Sunday with rainbow flags-could bring pots of gold to everyone from wedding planners to estate lawyers.

The economic boost from the new marriage law is estimated at nearly $400 million over the next three years, according to a recent state Senate report.

HUNDREDS OF GAY, LESBIAN COUPLES WED

More couples will be getting married, the wedding biz expects, and many of them will be having more lavish celebrations. Surveys have shown that gay couples often have more disposable incomes-especially in the city, where the price of the average wedding is about $70,000, more than twice the national average.

“They really want to go all out, they want a very posh wedding,” said Andrea Correale, president of Elegant Affairs, a five-star event-planning company that has been getting “a flurry of calls” in recent weeks.

“The fact that it’s actually legal, they are so elated, ,” she said, describing gay marriage as ” a real shot in the arm for high-end companies.”

Tourism boosters, led by Mayor Bloomberg, has embraced the newly marriage-eligible-advertising the new law in anticipation of as many as 20,000 couples traveling here in coming months to tie the knot.

“Overall, it’s a boon for many industries,” said Richard Kallman, CEO of CupcakeStop, a mobile shop that caters and bakes wedding cakes and has already booked a number of same-sex celebrations.

LIVE COVERAGE: THE FIRST DAY OF GAY MARRIAGE IN NEW YORK

“As time goes on, it will become a much bigger part of our business,” he predicted. “It will affect many industries.”

Those industries aren’t just dressmakers and florists.

Most other states and the federal government still ban gay marriage, raising a host of legal issues – and generating income for lawyers and financial planners.

Kathryn Hamm, president of the web site GayWeddings.com, cautioned that party planners may be expecting too much. Many long-time couples may have already held wedding or other commitment ceremonies, she said, and may not plan another extravagant party.

Still, inquiries from New York to her site are nearly triple the level from last summer.
Bentley Meeker, who runs a lighting and staging company, has also seen an uptick in business since the law passed.

“You have this demand that has been latent for a long time,” he said. “There’s a lot of pent-up desire to get married in this town.”

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2011/07/24/2011-07-24_samesex_nuptials_could_boost_new_york_economy_tourism_revenue_to_tune_of_400_mil.html#ixzz1T3upRojy

My big fab gay wedding

Floating cakes, horse-drawn carriages, black tie, oh my! Gay couples shoot for the moon in planning their vows

By CARRIE SEIM

Last Updated: 12:37 PM, July 19, 2011

Posted: 11:06 PM, July 18, 2011

“We look forward to gay marriages happening at the stadium,” says spokeswoman Alice McGillion.
And several same-sex couples can say their weddings made it to Broadway when the St. James Theatre hosts onstage ceremonies immediately after the July 25 performance of “Hair.”

Brad Boles, an interior designer (known as Jill Zarin’s “gay husband” on “The Real Housewives of New York”) and Gregg Carder, who works in real estate, are planning to go big for their nuptials: think Jay Gatsby and Taylor Dayne.

“Within hours [of the gay-marriage vote] their texts started rolling in, ‘Get ready . . . Great Gatsby. Here we come!’ “ says celebrity wedding planner and caterer Andrea Correale, president of Elegant Affairs.
The couple’s vision of wedding grandeur includes a Roaring ‘20s engagement party next March at Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla., two separate bachelor parties (one in Newport, RI, the other in Las Vegas) and a Gatsby-style wedding for 250 at a historic 1910 mansion in Tuxedo Park, NY.
Guests (who will be asked to don white tails, diamonds, etc.) will be transported by horse-drawn carriages and dine on period-specific cuisine while an elaborate orchestra serenades them. And pop star Taylor Dayne will sing “I Will Always Love You” for the couple’s first dance.

Thomas Carpenter, a 43-year-old lawyer from Brooklyn, and David Slivken, a 42-year-old internet marketer, are taking a more minimalist approach for their November 11 nuptials, planning an intimate, food-focused ceremony at a favorite Ditmas Park restaurant, The Farm on Adderley. The men have been partners for more than five years, but don’t like the idea of what they call a “second-class wedding” in another state. Within seconds of the New York vote, messages from friends rolled in offering congratulations — and asking which date to save. “I’m having an appreciation for bridezillas who lose it over the minor details!” jokes Carpenter, who’s feeling the wedding planning pressure.

Doris Tamai, 39, and Melissa Zappasodi, 27, of Suffolk County, will vow their eternal love for one another in September, wearing white gowns they found together at Kleinfeld Bridal (“We didn’t mind seeing each other’s dresses — we needed the help,” laughs Tamai, an anesthesiologist.) Their “elegant and traditional” ceremony at Bedell Cellars, a Long Island vineyard, will feature nine bridesmaids, string musicians, Christian prayers, a chuppah, Champagne toasts, a sit-down dinner for 130 and two ring bearers carrying a “Here Come the Brides” banner.

Although the women were married in Connecticut last summer, they say a home- state ceremony holds far more meaning.  “We are New Yorkers, and we are proud of being able to get married here,” says Zappasodi, a registered nurse.  Dennis Vollkommer and Ronald Simmons, on the other hand, plan to legalize their union with a quick justice-of-the-peace ceremony during the week of July 25. But only because they hosted an “over-the-top” wedding at Chateau La Mer catering hall in Lindenhurst, LI, just weeks ago.

The North Babylon couple — Vollkommer, 48, is an ER registration nurse and Simmons, 58, is a general manager at Staples — walked down the aisle May 6 in evening tails to the song “Today I Met the Boy I’m Gonna Marry” and asked guests to hoist rainbow flags for the entrance of their 12-person wedding party. They arrived by Rolls- Royce and feted guests with a roasted pig, multiple cocktail hours, an ice-cream bar and a five-tier wedding cake adorned with crystal brooches and ribbons.  “It was a fantasy wedding,” says Vollkommer.  But, he says, none of the hoopla can compare to the quiet day next week when his marriage will be recognized as legal in the state of New York.
“This is a dream come true for a lot of us,” he says.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/fashion/my_big_fab_gay_wedding_67F3veGf4c7YDHf0Pqwx3H#ixzz1SaP8KB1r