The Two of Us...and Friends introduces young couples to cooking and entertaining, while providing fun and inexpensive ways to have all the extras like flowers, candles, and invitations. There are no styrofoam balls to roll in glitter, only useful, elegant, and playful ways to entertain with ease and style. Organized with the 2-4-6-8 principle, each section contains four full menus, plus cooking, decorating, and entertaining tips taken from real life experiences. The "2" chapter, for "The Two of You," deals with the couple's care and feeding, emphasizing the need for alone time. The "4" chapter for a "Party of Four" includes easy but sophisticated menus with a seasonal bent. "6" celebrates "The Joy of Six" with lunches and dinners, sometimes in unusual places, and "Eight and Up" changes the formula slightly to provide not only a swanky dinner party for eight, but for sixteen, twenty-four, and thirty-two. Special "Multiplication Tables" note which menus are easily halved, doubled, and more, with specific notes on what might occur if the reader wants to alter the recipes. Easy, annotated recipe conversions provide additional assistance. Rounding out this Uniquely wonderful book are Jessie's exuberant, contemporary tone, unique entertaining suggestions, and delicious watercolor illustrations throughout.

Jessie Carry Saunders was on the editorial staff of Food & Wine after graduating from Princeton University. She is the author of Marlowe & Company's Not on Love Alone, a newlywed cookbook centered around the first year of marriage, and runs Dinners at Home, a catering concern that provides clients with food for dinner parties of six to sixteen. She lives in New York City with her husband, who does the dishes.