Party Themes

Boston chef Lydia Shire now hosts interactive cooking classes for private groups of 12. The three-hour sessions cost $3,000 and take place in the open kitchen at Shire's restaurant, Towne Stove & Spirits.

New York's Pink Powered by Moss is putting the finishing touches on its new Wave Form units. The 4- by 4-foot curved, stackable cubes made from an aluminum-tube frame and stretch fabric can be used to create textural backdrops, walls, and towers.

The first-ever food truck from Chicago's E. Leaven Food Company specializes in an impressive range of breakfast, lunch, and dessert items, including short rib piewiches and chopped salads, and can provide catering for meetings and events for groups of 10 or more guests. Most menu items cost less than $10 apiece.

Scarlett Entertainment (281.900.4176, scarlettentertainment.com) now offers site-specific outdoor aerial dancers for events. Available nationwide, the artists use aerial and ballet techniques to perform across the face of buildings and can incorporate silks, ropes, zip lines, bungee cords, and partner balancing tricks.

For a client or employee gift, wrap up a copy of Eating Las Vegas: The 50 Essential Restaurants (Huntington Press), $12.95, with picks from local dining critics and authors John Curtas, Max Jacobson, and Al Mancini.

New Los Angeles-based rental company Yeah! Rentals (323.522.3843, yeahrentals.com) specializes in mid-century furniture, like Eames chairs and Knoll sofas, as well as pieces by local, independent artisans. Their inventory is available for delivery throughout Southern California and can accommodate as many as 500 guests.

Orlando's ConceptBait Global Events & Floral Design Group has several new additions to its “Liquid Metals” linen collection. The wet-look spandex, which fits over armless chairs, now comes in silver, gold, and titanium hues, and starts at around $5.25 each. Coordinating table covers will roll out soon.

Coral Morphologic (coralmorpho logic.com) is teaming with the Miami Science Museum on a multimedia project to be displayed at the Miami International Airport, where high-definition screens will showcase corals as living art forms in digital aquascapes. The installation is meant to build excitement for the museum’s new $275 million facility opening in 2015.

Toronto's Glory Hole Doughnuts (gloryholedoughnuts.com) has been garnering buzz with flavors like maple bacon, chicken and waffles, and lemon meringue. The supplier can deliver as many as 300 handmade doughnuts or 500 “Lil’ Glories” for events.

In an effort to prevent large staging and exhibit structures from ending up in landfills, Arlington, Virginia-based design firm Beth Singer Design (703.469.1900, bethsingerdesign.com) is developing modular staging systems that can be reused, reconfigured, and resized. The portable, lightweight frames are easily customized with a variety of wrinkle-free fabric skins.

The Alliance Française de Washington debuted its Urban Corps Inaugural Gala May 17 with a hip-hop theme. The ticket prices and entertainment were geared toward a younger audience, with classically trained dancers performing hip-hop routines.

For the Museum of Modern Art’s film benefit on November 15 in New York, the celebrity arrivals backdrop wasn’t a step-and-repeat of logos but rather a wall of 20,000 fresh crimson-colored roses.