It is a truth universally acknowledged – amongst friends – that we’ll be having dinner at mine. If there is an inkling of a plan to gather around food, I am volunteering my little flat immediately, beating out the competition to host my friends. This isn’t hotly contested by anyone else; they defer to my love of cooking and showing my affection for them through food.
To me, there are three types of dinners. The cosy one pot meal eaten between two or three friends on the sofa, a cast iron sat on the coffee table for everyone to help themselves. There’s the larger group hang where friends find space on the floor and there’s no less or more than three large plates to pick at. And then there’s the formal dinner where I dress two tables pushed together in a white table cloth, adorned with candles and flowers, a three course meal on its way.
I remember watching Rachel Khoo’s Little Paris Kitchen when I was younger and found the romance of prepping food in a tiny kitchen with the windows flung open endlessly romantic. Whether I’m prepping a rotisserie chicken and frozen fries from the supermarket with a creamy green salad or experimenting with sake and miso for a clam linguine because the idea came to me in a fever dream at 3am.
My thoughts on hosting are simple: cook with your audience in mind and don’t make things too complicated for yourself. For my group of North American friends, I tend to cook like I would in Vancouver - lots of fresh green salads and fries. I know my friends who love pasta and those who prefer rice. I use the rule of three and I prep as much as I can before the first guest arrives and I always cook with a glass of something special nearby.
Ultimately the art of gathering is nothing about the food or the way the table looks. It’s about the conversations around the table that make you think, screaming with laughter on the floor, giving someone a Tupperware of leftovers because they’ve got a busy day ahead.
I like how hosting is split into two pleasures: the gathering of ingredients, the experimenting and act of cooking alone. Then the hands reaching across the table, passing plates to one another, the fullness and wholeness of it all.
