Louise T. Guinther

The Academy Awards aren’t really about the movies for me. To begin with, I never manage to see all the pictures that are in the running, so I can’t get fully invested in whether my picks win or not. Besides, there are always umpteen genuinely worthy nominees for every one award, and umpteen more candidates just as worthy as the nominees who don’t make the official list. (Then, too, there are usually at least a handful of contenders who wouldn’t have made the cut if the academy had asked my opinion on the subject.) And deep down, I don’t approve of making any performing art into a competition anyway.

Nevertheless, I wouldn’t miss the Oscars, which, for me, are all about the fashions and the food — the fashions on the red carpet in Hollywood and on the reddish rug in my living room, and the food my companions and I eat while cheering and jeering the Academy’s choices and dishing out our own best- and worst-dressed awards. Whoever the real winners may be, my Oscars-night buddies always consider ourselves lucky to have the chance to dress to the nines, settle down with a champagne cocktail and pretend we’re Hollywood royalty.

I must say that, most years, the couture at the House of Guinther is a cut above what we see on the TV screen, though tonight we gave unanimous gold stars to Lupita Nyong’O’s sleek silver and feathers, Zendaya’s rose-and-pewter Armani, Lily Gladstone’s fabulous earrings, complementing the porcupine-quillwork accents on her gown and cape, and Rita Moreno’s floofy black number, accentuating her magnificent ninety-two-year-old figure. We were divided over Ariana Grande’s gigantic pink wrap-around bustle, which looked to me (in an admittedly rather charming way) like she had overslept and rushed off to the ceremony pulling the bedclothes along with her as she went.

The fare at our Oscars party began, of course, with popcorn (traditional, with butter and salt, and a variation, with a hint of parmesan cheese), continued with broiled tilefish with tomato salsa and quinoa with asparagus, mushrooms and leeks, and ended with Mexican chocolate flan and hazelnut cookies. I have no idea what they were serving at the after-parties, but my group gave the chef a thumbs-up.

Though the gossip columns won’t be reporting on the details of our private event, I doubt the stars had any more fun with Oscar experience than we had with ours.