Read The Bright Side of Disaster!

I hope you'll go buy a copy of The Bright Side of Disaster. Here's my cousin's website: www.katherinecenter.com

Writer Reborn

After a year of incubation I am finally read to look at my thesis again. I've have my head buried in psychology books like an ostrich in the sand, too timid to face this project on which I'd spent so much of myself. But last weekend as I listened to my newly published cousin, Katherine Center, read a chapter from her novel The Bright Side of Disaster to an eager crowd, I remembered that my writing won't pay off until someone actually reads it.

So here is the introduction to Home on the Range: the Story of an American Cook:


INTRODUCTION
Miss Ruby’s Café: Ruth Reborn

Just before Christmas 1977 in West Stockbridge, Massachusetts, a pale moon cast its light over the frozen New England town, but inside the firelit storefront on Main Street, the room was warmed by blinking votives and the spice and sweetness of good home cooking. Her cinnamon hair pulled loosely in a bun, oval face turned toward her work, Ruth prepped vegetables, made sauces, started soups, fried tostadas and hushpuppies, boiled beans. For thirty-seven year-old Ruth Adams Bronz, this was the smell of new beginnings.

In a cutthroat business she was opening a restaurant from scratch with little more than a few thousand dollars and good kitchen sense. But she was as sure of success as if she’d already made it; for her, it was the most natural thing in the world. For a moment, the past was behind her--the death of her young husband and the shadow of infidelity, the sting of her father’s disapproval and indifference, the fear that she’d never find her calling--all of these things were neutralized, if only for a time, by Miss Ruby’s Café.

The next fifteen years would be the sweetest of her life. Miss Ruby’s saw immediate success, even in the slow winter months when there were no tourists and it was so cold even the locals were tempted to stay in. The restaurant was dubbed the focal point for the “cultured counterculture” and in its peak summer months drew around 600 customers a day.

Her customers called her “Miss Ruby,” and she liked it that way. The new name was apt. The “Miss” lent a southern lilt, a feminine dignity without associations of marriage or matronhood; “Ruby,” suggested things red and fiery, full of warmth and spice, passion and blood. The nickname, coined by an old lover, conveyed Ruth’s inviting familiarity that disarmed and delighted her customers. She didn’t have to bother with fussy feedback forms; customers told her--often hollered over the partition--while she cooked.

“Too spicy, Miss Ruby. Ease up on us Yankees” or “there’s bones in my soup!" She’d take it or leave it, depending on how fussy the customer, how crucial the ingredient, but was always gracious, reassuringly maternal. This was, at last, her kitchen, unapologetically her domain.

Ruth, after all, had had no formal training as a chef, only as a cook in a bistro flipping hamburgers and grilling fish. With little knowledge or concern as to what would be commercially wise or market savvy, she cooked what she herself would eat and serve to people she loved. Knowing that biscuits are best eaten piping hot and straight out of the oven, she had her waiters serve them from the pan they were baked in instead of wasting precious time transferring them to lined baskets. Because she wanted to expose people to new foods and pique their interest, she changed the menu every week, something unheard of by the townspeople, and rarely practiced then by anyone in the food business. Drawing inspiration from Junior League cookbooks, community cookbooks, and family recipes, she created meals out of a fascination with the food people made in their homes all over the country.

What seemed very natural to Ruth was largely unacknowledged in the food world maybe even today--that the United States has a diverse and worthy regional cuisine from border to border, coast to coast. Countries like France and Italy have long been recognized for their regional specialties, but Ruth’s appreciation was much more specific. She gave credence to recipes from home cooks all over the country, from the smallest towns in the Midwest to California’s northern coast. Many restaurants might recognize Creole cooking or deep southern cooking, New England or Tex-Mex, but Miss Ruby’s featured a different regional cuisine every week, sometimes repeating a region, but never a menu.

Though she owned the place and could have left the sweltering kitchen and long hours on her feet to the employees, Ruth insisted upon prepping and cooking the food she served. It wasn’t a chore, it was what she did--the feel of the sharp knife slipping through crisp vegetables, the crackle and earthy caramel of onions sautéing, the fresh perfume of a tossed salad--these were her unalloyed delights, this was her happiness.

In 1991, 13 years after she first opened her restaurant, Ruth would suffer successive, crippling setbacks. But on that cold December night in 1977, Ruth was free, solitary and strong, her past behind her and the present as rich as a good chicken stock. As the guests trudged through the snow that night towards the amber windows of Miss Ruby’s Café, they could smell pumpkin and biscuits, pork chops and gravy, and through the window they saw Ruth, aproned, smiling, and ready to cook.

The Empty Pantry Challenge

In penury we often forget to nourish ourselves and settle, instead, for mere feeding. But casual foresight is all we need to keep a respectable pantry alive and generous.

Strategies: buy on sale, even when you don't need something. If it's something that you eat frequently or could use in times of want, stock up.
Have soup with meals as a filler, something simple like miso paste keeps well and goes a long way. Stir a spoonful into a bowl of boiling water, and cut green onion or mushroom if you have it. Even a bouillon cube dissolved into water with a little egg whipped in as it simmers; or take a wilted carrot, peel, dice and boil it with the bouillon and some noodles.

Here's an incomplete list of low cost, typically easy to store items to keep on hand. Make a running list of staple items and tack it to a pantry door for reference.:

-Pasta (buy a variety: orzo with butter, parmasan, and pepper; Bowtie with bell peppers, pine nuts and grilled chicken;Simmer red chili flakes and garlic in olive oil, toss with salt and pepper.)
-Canned whole plum tomatoes
-Tomato paste
-Anchovy paste (a teaspoon gives pasta sauce character)
-Rice (see archived post on rice)
-Beans (white, black, red, kidney, black-eyed peas, lentils, lima, pinto -- a 1 pound bag of beans, which should feed a family for a week, usually costs under a dollar)
-Canned fish (see past post "to the cannery" for ideas)
-Dried fruit (often pricey, so look for it on sale or buy in bulk at Costco)
-Nuts (pine, almonds, walnuts, pecans, pistachios all work in a number of dishes and lend themselves to snacking. Buying them in their shells is cheaper but more trouble. Nuts are a worthy investment and, like dried fruit, are bearable when bought wholesale)
-Crackers
-Ramen (see archived post "R-Amen")

Frozen Foods:
In an ideal world we would cull brightly colored produce from a farmer's stand each day to maximize its freshness and nutritional content; but cramped schedules and the temptation to overspend at the grocery store keeps most of us at bay for a week or more. Keeping the freezer stocked with fruits and vegetables frozen at their peak and a few select prepared foods for convenience.
-Fruit (In penury,with milk or juice, make a fine smoothie)
-Vegetables (broccoli, green beans, asparagus, peas, corn, spinach)
-Prepared foods (Trader Joe's pizza, breaded eggplant, lasagna--homemade or storebought)

Takeout-In

For a month now, a few of you readers have expressed to me, with varying degrees of patience, that a new post is long overdue. I met these grievances with a momentary pang of concern, followed by a flurry of brainstorming, and then a steady tide of complacency. But last night I learned that one of you, indignant, had vowed to eat take-out every night until I posted something new. This threat cut to the quick of my insecurities, and right then I decided to put an end to my epistolary lassitude. And so--a New Post is in the works. Stay tuned.

Meatballs and Spaghetti

A thrifty cook is constantly looking for affordable dishes that yield many servings, keep well, and satisfy. And while I encourgage experimentation, one of the most important principles of practical cooking is developing a steady, dependable repertoire. Everyone deserves a sense of mastery, and mastery comes with practice.

One dish that lends itself to repetition, both for its crowd-pleasing potential and its comforting nature, is Meatballs and Spaghetti. Ten dollars and a couple of hours in the kitchen can feed a party of eight, or feed two for a week. There is something both dramatic and familiar about piling fist sized meatballs, coated in sultry sauce, on a tangle of spaghetti, like unlikely boulders on a gentle hill.

More rewarding still is developing a signature sauce, a special way of coaxing the ingredients so the recipe is uniquely one's own. My boyfriend loves to recollect the scene in Goodfellas where Paul Sorvino slivers garlic with a razor blade so that when they hit the heated olive oil, they melt. As a tribute to the great director, and because the wine is pretty decent, Matt uses Francis Ford Coppola's table wine in his sauce and sips from a short tumbler while he makes the dish, cook's treat.

This recipe is an adaptation of one from Lidia Bastianich, a true Italian cook, and the Coppola wine comes from Matt. Serve a green salad (just lettuce!) on the side, tossed lightly with a lemon vinaigrette (instead of vinager, use lemon and its zest), and drink the same wine used in the sauce.



The Meatballs

1 lb ground beef with decent fat content
(if veal or pork is on sale, do a half pound of each. Generally beef will do just fine and is always affordable)
1 cup bread crumbs
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 small onion, minced
2 handfuls chopped parsley
1 tablespoon red chili flakes
1 large egg
generous grinding of black pepper
1 T salt
plus 2 cups all purpose flour (set aside on a plate for dredging the meatballs)

Mix all ingredients in a large bowl until well incorporated and roll into balls. Mine are golfball sized because I like the ratio of meat exposed to sauce, but the baseball sized ones look dramatic on the plate. (Just make sure to cook the bigger ones longer.) Roll the balls in flour and set on a tray, then set aside and fix the sauce.

The Sauce

1 large can whole plum tomatoes
1/2 to 1 small can tomato paste
1 onion, minced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 T salt
1 tsp red chili flakes
1 cup Coppola table wine (or nicer stuff if you want to spring for it)

Saute onion and garlic until soft over medium heat (I start from a cool pan so that the garlic doesn't singe and get bitter), add chili flakes and tomato paste, then squelch the tomatoes and add their liquid and the cup of wine. Add salt and pepper and bring to the boil, turn down heat, and cover with the lid just off kilter (this lets it reduce some without splattering red dots all over the kitchen). Incidentally, the dose of tomato paste is bold--the effect is a thick, tangy sauce, and concentrated so that less is needed to coat the spaghetti. Do adjust the paste to your own palate.

Meanwhile, heat a largeheavy skillet and add olive oil, about a quarter cup. Brown the meatballs in batches so that each ball has room to turn over (I brown the golfball sized ones on two sides; the larger ones need three). As they are finished, place them in the simmering sauce with tongs. If it looks like the sauce needs liquid, add a little water, stock, or wine and stir it around from time to time so that the bottom doesn't scorch (this can happen with sauce because of the high sugar and acid content).

Simmer the meatballs and sauce for 45 minutes, partially covered, stirring and adding liquid as needed. The flour from the browned meatballs incorporates and renders the sauce creamy. Halfway through cooking time, boil pasta water and cook til al dente, then toss noodles with some of sauce to pull in its flavor and to keep it from sticking. Serve hot, piled high, with freshly grated parmasan and chopped parsley.

Hiatus...Thesis

I've got a pretty red book that explains my absence these last three weeks. After 15 months of research and writing, I finally finished my master's thesis, Home on the Range: the Story of an American Cook. If anyone knows of an agent or editor interested in documenting the contributions of a pioneer of regional American cooking, let me know.

Soul for the Chicken Soup

Chicken stock, long revered as medicinal, even magical, has become so iconic it has been abstracted from its deeply aromatic liquid form. On cooking shows and in recipes, chicken stock is added, quite cavalierly, into stews and sauces with little acknowledgement of the stuff itself. Chicken stock made at home is a process and an end in itself, not merely the flavor enhancer or thinner it’s made out to be.

As quality organic stocks become available, fewer people brew their own; but to abandon the process is to decimate its potency and completely overlook the point. Part of the value of good chicken stock (and any food, really) is the time taken to make it, the care invested by its cook. Once mastered and streamlined, it can be meditative and old-fashioned--something like canning jellies and pickles for winter--because it’s not the kind of thing to make in small batches.

A chicken carcass simmered with vegetables produces a fine stock, because the marrow from the bones yields flavor and gelatin gives it body. Freeze scraps (onion tops, carrot and celery butts, fennel stalks, bones) in a zipper bag and when it fills up make a stock. It can be worth the extra cost to boil a whole plump chicken in order to strip it of its meat. Oily and mauve, the dark meat holds up best to boiling.

Carrot, onion, celery, and leek are usual vegetables for the stock because they are aromatic without overpowering and work well with each other. Starches like potatoes don’t give as much flavor and cloud the soup, though they can be added later, diced and simmered ‘til tender for a vegetable soup.

Salt the stock carefully and gradually after the cooking since the salinity increases as the water evaporates during cooking time. Too little salt and it tastes like dishwater; too much and you might just as well have Campbell’s.

1 chicken (3 to 4 pounds), well rinsed, neck in, giblets removed
1 1/2 gallons cold water, or enough to cover the chickens
2 medium onions quartered
2 large carrots cut in half
2 stalks celery cut in half
1 clove garlic cut in half
1 bay leaf
handful of parsley

Place all the ingredients into a large (3 to 4 gallon if you’ve got it) stockpot and set over a medium-high heat. Bring the contents of the pot to a boil and reduce to a simmer. Keep a spoon and dumping bowl near the pot and skim the impurities and fat that rise to the top. Cook the stock over the next 6 hours, skimming as needed. This is something to do casually, as you wash laundry or do housework; simply skim when it occurs to you. I have made stock without skimming and lived to tell the tale so if you find it cumbersome, cut it out and see if you can live without it. It should be simmering, where the surface of the liquid quakes and bubbles occasionally. If the stock boils outright the fat and scum will mix with the stock and cause it to become cloudy (again, a murky stock, while less beautiful, never hurt a soul.)

When the stock is done, rich and amber, strain through a fine mesh sieve and let cool. Fish out the chicken and harvest its meat, which can be added to stock for chicken soup or dressed with mayonnaise, celery, lemon, and pepper for a chicken salad. To de-fat the room-temperature stock, chill in the fridge and pull off the opaque congealed fat in shards.

The stock is perfect piping hot, alone or spiked with pepper, lemon juice, and chopped parsley. A handful of brown rice sunk at the bottom lasts longer in the belly; a pinch of grated ginger, carrot, and chopped green onion or minced jalapeno open up the airways. Add chicken, carrot, and corn on the cob then dress with chunks of avocado, lime juice and cilantro balance the richness of the stock with fresh, cool and tangy accents. Before embellishing, however, sip it straight up. Linger over this elixir that took so long to make. Sometimes a good thing must be stripped to its purest form.

Dinner Party on a Shoestring

Cooking for company is a way of getting interesting people together, lubricating conversation with food, drink, and candlelight. Going out to dinner is fine, on occasion, but it always ends with the moment when everyone puts hand to wallet and wonders how much they spent, whether or not to use cash or split it between five credit cards. Eating at home is never punctuated by an awareness of the cost of the meal, which is always, when cooked in earnest for friends, priceless.

When I throw a dinner party, I set the table, light candles, and play music on low. I make sure the food is never ready when the guests arrive. About a half hour before anyone should be there, I begin chopping vegetables, putting anything that takes a while in the oven or on the stove, and continue cooking and greeting as people filter in. For one thing, it removes the inconvenience of guests coming late. They ought to arrive on time, but if they don’t, you’re less likely to pace and fret if you’ve got something to do. Secondly, meals should not be unveiled all at once like a live rabbit from a hat; guests should interact with the food they are about to eat, should stir the soup or baste the roast, if they like.

The worst thing a host can do is fuss over the dinner. By all means, care how it turns out, but don’t work yourself into such a froth that the whole process ceases to please you and your guests. And if stress should begin to take hold of you, turn off the stove, pour a fat glass of wine, and sit down with your guests.

In fact, a great dinner party need not cost a thing if you encourage people to bring a dish or a bottle of something nice to drink. Other inexpensive ways to feed a group are casseroles. For an easy lasagna, layer tomato sauce, parboiled lasagna strips, ricotta cheese, and thawed strained frozen spinach, salted and peppered, until you run out of room or ingredients and top with handfuls of mozzarella and parmesan cheese. Bake at 375 for about an hour (check on it half way through) and let sit for 10 minutes before serving. Lasagna needs nothing more than a light-bodied red wine and a simple green salad. If you like, make strong coffee and butter cookies for dessert.

Dinner need not take long either—sausage, potatoes, and steamed kale might take a half hour altogether. Bring a big pot of water to a boil and salt it, then drop in as many small potatoes as you think you need. In another pot bring an inch of water to a boil and stuff in as much kale (a pleasantly bitter, leafy green—delicious with the salty sausage and bland, creamy potatoes) as you can and keep adding as it wilts until it’s all in. When it’s wilted, salt it and drizzle oil or toss in butter and set aside with the lid on. In another pan heat one link of Kielbasa for every two people on medium heat until the skin crisps and set aside. The potatoes should be done after 15 or 20 minutes. Strain, butter, salt and pepper them. Hearty, fast, and gentle on the pocketbook, this is a fine meal to master for unexpected or last-minute guests.

When deciding what to prepare, it is important, of course, to know yourself and your limitations. Make a meal you think you can manage, avoid trying anything new the night of the party, and if you begin to feel overwhelmed, delegate.

Polite guests will offer to clean up—let them help you and chat until things are tidy, thus avoiding waking up to crusty plates, wine-stained glasses and napkins, and the stench of sour booze and day-old food. Better to rise at your leisure to a clean room so that the only thing on your mind is the night before and the good black coffee you are about to drink.

Whether it’s an elaborate feast for ten or a pot of spaghetti shared between roommates, eating with company can elevate a meal to communion. Whatever the occasion, when you can, make it count.

A Good Cuppa Joe

Despite its brawny effect, coffee is rather delicate stuff. Once roasted, it begins to lose flavor after a couple of days; when ground and exposed to air, a noticeable flavor breakdown begins within minutes unless stored in an airtight container; brewed coffee must be drunk instantly. For that reason, it is best made one cup at a time; any form of mass-produced coffee will be undoubtedly inferior. Flat, burnt, stale.

All too often we patronize coffee houses like Starbucks and Coffee Bean for their signature drinks: frothy, syrupy concoctions full of fat and sugar and low on quality coffee. This is where these companies make their mint. Masked by shots of flavored syrup, smothered in whipped cream, shaken with milk and chocolate, it doesn’t matter what the coffee tastes like, and consumers are willing to spend several dollars for their morning fix.

If it’s dessert you want, by all means, indulge in your venti caramel macchiato; but when it comes down to it, most people are just looking for the sharpening, mind-clearing effects of caffeine. In short, coffee makes the morning a little kinder. And in my mind there is no better way to ease into consciousness than a freshly-brewed, steaming cup of coffee: dark, rich, and made at home.

First, it’s important to commit to treating yourself to home-brewed coffee. It requires a few pieces of equipment and a modicum of effort, but certainly less than lugging yourself to a coffee shop. And it’s much more affordable.

Second, the single most important rule to brewing coffee is ratio. Always use two heaping tablespoons for every six ounces of water (filtered is best). Too much coffee leads to overextraction: bitter coffee. If you like your coffee weaker, add hot water after it’s made.

Now, the equipment. There are a variety of ways to actually brew your coffee at home; each has its advantages, and you may want to experiment. For those of you who need a simple answer and don’t care to deliberate, pick one and stick with it. We are smarter than the tools we use and can make them work to our advantage.

I use a single-cup drip cone, which is a plastic cone with a small hole at the bottom. It costs a couple of bucks at the grocery store and washes up like a dream. You buy filters that match the size cone you’ve bought (mine’s a #2) and insert the filter into the drip. Boil water on a hotplate, in a microwave, or in an electric kettle, depending on how well your dorm/apartment is equipped. Once the water comes to a boil, turn off the heat, wait a couple of seconds, and pour the water over the grounds in your filter until it reaches just below the top. Let that drain about halfway and add more water to the top. This should fill one regular sized coffee cup.

If you have an automatic drip, unplug it as soon as it's brewed and drink it. You don’t want your coffee sitting on a burner—the continuous heat causes it to turn. These are just as easy to use, and some can be set to engage in the morning when you wake up. Simply fill the well with water, however much you want to drink. Remember to keep your proportions consistent: 12 oz of water needs four heaping tablespoons of coffee.

A french press brews a stout, frothy cup of coffee. It consists of steeping the grounds in a special glass beaker, then pressing down on them with a handled fine-meshed screen. The grounds are pinned under the screen, and you’re left with strong, full-bodied coffee. This method is easy and kind of fun once you’ve mastered the press motion. The only drawback is clean-up, which can be tiresome due to fine coffee particles clinging to the mesh screen.

There is no pleasure like the simple act of brewing your own coffee just right, every morning. It’s not merely the deep roasted aroma or the caffeine, but the reassuring ritual of putting water on to boil, spooning the chocolaty grounds into the filter, waiting for the coffee saturated water to percolate into the cup, the drips pattering more deeply as the mug fills up.

Tips:
*Buy whole beans and grind them at home or have them ground at the store. (Ralph’s has a self-serve machine and Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s will do it for you.)
*Store coffee in an airtight container away from heat but not in the freezer.
*Always measure two heaping tablespoons for every six ounces (about a mugful) of water.

Suggested Brands:
*Peet’s makes great coffee at a moderate price ($9.99 pack at Ralph’s)
*Don Francisco espresso ground is decent and dirt cheap ($3.49 tin at Ralph’s)
*Whole Foods roasts its own beans in-house. You may have to try a few kinds before you settle on one, but these are likely to be some of the freshest you can find.

The Ultimate Valentine: a Meal from the Heart

I received a request for a romatic dinner for two from a reader and developed the following menu.
There are two things to keep in mind:

1) plan and cook ahead of time if you can. Something that involves a lot of last minute primping will take you away from the main event, your Valentine.
2) Lay off heavy garlic, onions, or gas producing foods like beans, cabbage, broccoli. If you must (because onions and garlic are almost indispensable)
make sure to put after dinner mints on the table.

I often like to start with a salad because it's cool, light, teases the appetite rather than satisfies, and because it's a simple thing to have prepared in advance and toss at the last minute. Here's a killer recipe for fennel and clementine salad:

The Salad: Fennel and Clementines

3 T vinegar
6-8 T olive oil
salt and pepper
3 clementines
1 bulb fennel

In the same bowl in which you plan to serve the salad, make a simple vinaigrette, whisking one part vinegar to two parts oil, then salt and pepper to taste. Finally, zest and whisk in two of your clementines.

Cut the stalks off a bulb of fennel, reserving the fronds, and slice the bulb paper thin if you can. Lay the slices on the vinaigrette in the serving bowl.

Peel two or three clementines (tiny, succulent oranges usually sold in wooden crates at the store) and slice each into three parts, so that the slice, when lain flat, looks like a daisy. Keep these on a small plate and put the whole salad in the fridge until you're ready to toss the salad.

To serve, toss the fennel with the vinaigrette, then roughly chop the fronts and scatter. Finally, arrange the clemetine flowers around the salad bowl--the sharp, juicy orange against the pale mint green of the fennel is stunning.
The salad is so fresh, you could also serve it after the main course.

Main Course: Roast Chicken with Cherry Tomatoes and Fingerling Potatoes

Roast chicken, made at home, is always richer and more tender than you are likely to find in restaurants, and it's so easy and affordable that there's no reason not to make it a staple. Roast it on the bone (instead of buying skinless, boneless), and buy a whole or half chicken with thigh and breast meat, because it's not only cheaper and better tasting, but it forces the eater to pick it up with his fingers, work his mouth around the joints rooting around for last morsels. I think food tastes better when passed from hand to mouth.

4-6 pieces of chicken, bone in, dark and light meat
1 sack of cherry tomatoes
20 or so small fingerling potatoes
1 onion
6 cloves garlic
zest and juice of 1 lemon
1 cup white wine or dry vermouth (optional)
1 handful parsley, chopped fine (for dusting at the last minute)
other herbs, like tarragon or thyme, work very well, too
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Before handling raw chicken, set everything out so you don't have to touch things with salmonella hands--have a big wad of paper towels handy for patting the chicken dry after washing. In a roasting pan or casserole dish, drizzle olive oil over the chicken and rub evenly. Wash hands, then salt and pepper the chicken on both sides. Chop an onion into big wedges and toss with olive oil. Place the garlic cloves in their shells around the chicken. If you have room in the pan, put the tomatoes in, or just put a few in for flavor and roast the others in a separate pan. The potatoes get their own pan. Olive oil, salt and pepper them.

Put the whole lot in the oven for about 45 minutes, just enough time to have cocktails and chat before dinner. It is also a good idea to let the chicken sit for 10 minutes before serving. This allows it to cool to a palatable temperature and the juices to distribute themselves. Serve the chicken, potatoes, and tomatoes on a big plate and sprinkle with chopped parsley. Serve with a light red wine or the white wine you used to cook the chicken.

Dessert
Simple is best--buy a pint of darkest chocolate and serve with tart fruit, like strawberries or rasberries, maybe a sprig of mint; pistachio ice cream with chopped pistachios on top; or just make strong coffee with butter cookies or biscotti on the side.

The most important element of dinner is YOU, so don't let yourself stress out--gaffes make a meal memorable. If it burns, scrape it off, if it's ruined, order take out. Be cheerful and generous, don't drink too much--but eat well.