Justin Timberlake is a great entertainer!
Whether it’s on stage, on the big screen or at his own home, he loooooves to entertain!
He gave a recent interview to Bon Appetit magazine, where he talked about how he hosts Sunday BBQs, how to be a good host and all about the kind of food and music he likes to serve up for his guests.
The interview went something like this:
What’s the key to being a great host?
“The key to good hosting is to make sure everyone has enough to eat–and booze on. In my house, we tend to host Sunday barbecues, which is convenient in football season. Everybody can do chips and dips. But a good friend of ours, Jon Rollo–one of the founders of Greenleaf in L.A.–will send over pretzel bite sandwiches and flatbread pizzas. He’ll send over fennel salads. Don’t get me wrong: I can never turn guacamole down. But this is a healthy alternative to loading your face with cans of Rotel.”
What’s your philosophy on being a good host?
“If you’re hosting people, you want them to feel like they’re in their own home. I don’t like things to be too formal. I’ve hosted Halloween murder mystery dinners where people had to search through the house for clues. We did one that was Prohibition era-themed. The girls showed up as flappers and the guys showed up in waistcoats and pinstripes. At some point, people will drink enough to be hungry, so you need enough food. I’ve hosted parties where I’ll have an In-and-Out truck show up later on in the evening. You know everyone will be hungry again.”
What’s your go-to drink to cool down?
“Every time I’ve been photographed at a Lakers Game it’s with a Coors Light in my hand. But I pick my cocktails based on the seasons. In the colder weather I tend to drink whiskey cocktails. In the warmer months, I’m a big fan of tequila, obviously. You can do a Paloma–with tequila and grapefruit juice. But my go-to is a Pepino. It’s cucumber, tequila, pineapple juice, and Grand Marnier. It’s a BBQ cocktail. I’m into beer cocktails, too. I had a beer cocktail the other day: honey wheat ale, micro-brewed with blueberries. And then they serve half a shot of Woodford Reserve with it. You get the carbonation from the beer and this smokey thing from the bourbon, offset by the blueberry, which is sweet. Perfect flavors mixed into one. I only had one cocktail, which was really smart–I wanted to be able to walk out of the restaurant.”
You were born in Memphis. If you’re entertaining there, where’s the food coming from?
“Gus’s Fried Chicken is one of my favorites. But I’ll mention a BBQ place you’d have to search to find. It’s called The Store on the Hill, and it’s literally a convenience store on the hill. It’s family-owned, and tucked away in the country, and the owner smokes a bunch of different pork shoulders every day. You can get a tub of pulled pork and a tub of baked beans and a tub of cole slaw and take it home to entertain 20 people. It’s home-smoked BBQ. But the place itself? It looks like that scene in the movie where someone is going to be brutally harmed. Someone’s about to say, ‘Goodnight.'”
What’s the strategy for music when you’re having people over?
“We’re pretty chill at my house. We stay away from the EDM–electronic dance music–until the sun goes down. I try to keep the debauchery to a minimum until then. Music is the eternal mood shifter. I’ll go through a 25-song set of Gap Band and SOS Band and Kool and the Gang–a good, funk-soul set–then you can bridge that into Radiohead, The Strokes. I find that classic rock seems to work really well, although that may sound clich├â┬⌐. My mixes run the gamut from Radiohead to Kanye to Steve Miller Band to Dylan.”
He sounds like such a great host!
We wanna go to a party at his house!
Maybe send an invite our way next time!
[Image via Starbux/WENN.]