Catering is Not a Crime

I have a confession to make. I didn't cook this meal.

Jenny and I hosted a dinner party for 6 and we didn't cook a darn thing. No, I wasn't lying to my guests. They knew the food they were so happily scarfing down was not of our hands. Loathe us if you will, but we slept really well that night.

Usually a dinner party involves much planning, pre-cooking and rushing home from work at 4:00 to get things started. This time, I wasn't breaking into a sweat. I wasn't stressing over details, studying recipes, waiting in nervous anticipation for the food to be done, all the while asking myself if my guests would arrive before the food gets cold.

Not that I don't enjoy hosting dinner parties! Indeed, that's one of my favorite things to do, and I'll very happily cook for friends and family. It's just nice, for once, to have people over here to eat without the task of making a meal. I could actually sit down, eat chips and salsa, converse and enjoy a drink or two.

One day I envision a house with a "TV" kitchen where I could be in the kitchen cooking smoothly while hanging out with people from the party. Think Mario Batali's show on the Food Network. It would blend seamlessly into the living room. Guests could walk up to ask about a particular dish and I could yarn endlessly about Greek olives or the kind of crusty bread made by grandmothers in the Pasta Fajioli region of southeast Tuscany. It'd be sweet.

But until then I'm stuck in a galley kitchen that gets to be 100 degrees when the oven and all four burners are on. I still love to cook in it, but for this once I'll lay down my mitts and let someone else do the dirty work.