I've set a goal for the final week ofthe #cook90 Spring challenge: I'm going to stop apologizing.
No more apologizing for the sometimes-awful photosI put on Instagram. No more apologizing for throwing togethera kitchen-sink saladfor dinner. No more apologizing for the fact that I might eatovernight oatsfor breakfast every day for a week.
What's that expression again? Sorry not sorry? Yeah, that's going to be me this week.
So when I ask you over for dinner (invite's in the mail), I'm not going to apologize for asking you to chop a bunch of scallions. I'm just going to hand you the vegetables, a knife, and an apron. (And a cocktail.) Not sorry!
I think we'll both be happier this way. In the past, I would have sent you to the couch with a drink and a sad bowl of almonds, and spent the next hour lamenting loudly from the kitchen about the state of my apartment (not clean enough!), the state of the meal (not ready soon enough!), and, I don't know, the state of the union (these are end times!). It wasn't fun for me or my guests.
But that was then. #cook90 is now. And on #cook90, I've realized that it's hosts, not real cooks, that pull off "perfect" dinner parties.
换句话说,人给我拉了perfectly executed, flawlessly presented dinner party, and I'll show you somebody who doesn't cook very much.
The best cooks I know are still cooking when I arrive, and they're happy to let me help. Their kitchens are cluttered and their aprons are stained because they haven't just been cooking for this occasion—they cook every day, and they're probably going to cook again as soon as you're gone. And those dinner parties are always the most relaxed, the most fun, the most memorable ones.
I want to be that kind of cook, so the other night I didn't make a single move to scrub my floors before my friends came over for dinner (instead, I dimmed the lights). I told my guests to pour their own drinks, and then I put them to work in the kitchen. We chopped herbs, fried onions, rolled out dough, and gossiped. If my friends thought they were here to eat dinner, they were wrong—I invite people over tocookdinner now.
It's a sound strategy. Humans are working animals; we like clear, explicit tasks. So lately, I've been makingpizzasand letting my guests prep the toppings. (My colleague Kat's spring pizza is perfect for this.) And when the pizzas are ready, I hand somebody a stack of plates and ask them to set the table.
Nobody cares that the table wasn't set ahead of time. Nobody cares that I usually sit down at the table without remembering to take my apron off. Nobody really even cares about the food, really. The mark of a happy dinner party guest is not how many compliments they give you on the meal, but how long they linger after that meal is gone. So let them linger—and if youreallywant to make them happy, let them do the dishes.
