The Simple Need of New to Town

On cooking for people you hope will be friends.

Dear Tamar:

I’m new to town and want to invite people over to share food. I don’t want a traditional dinner party, though. Maybe a potluck? But I don’t want to seem rude, and I don’t know how to ask. Maybe a creative food sideshow to a non-mealtime gathering? Any thoughts much appreciated.

-New to Town

Dear New to Town,

I swear I once read a story about the artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude inviting people to their apartment on Howard Street and serving exclusively white toast with butter—they plugged in a toaster, opened bags of sliced bread, toasted it, and passed the toast down the table.

I can’t find evidence of it anywhere. The closest I’ve gotten is a German magazine claiming that the couple served Marcel Duchamp, Frank Stella, Leo Castelli, and a cast of other artists white bread with ketchup and supermarket steak, badly cooked. Whichever—if either—of these is true, the story I read as a twenty-two year old living in New York City inspired the hosting I did for years; it still does.

I lived by ‘ino at the time, and had become infatuated with its menu of three-ingredient pressed sandwiches, like “cacciatorini, goat cheese, and olive tapenade.” I’d also been given a plug-in, indoor grill with a lid, which worked as a panino press. Feeling very much the expatriate artist, I bought bread, salami, prosciutto, sliced mozzarella, goat cheese, pickled peppers, tapenade, and pesto, and invited twenty people to make their own panini. It was a mess, and a success, with me presiding over the little non-stick counter-top grill and feeling elegant and outré.

Not long after, I held a dinner for which I made steaks then sent guests out at the last minute for ten orders of McDonald’s french fries. It was frigid outside, much like it has been this week. The fries were rubbery by the time they got home. A few of us went back out to try again. We only half-succeeded, but were bonded by our mission.

I moved out of the apartment twenty years ago. But, much as the spirit of the mission stayed with everyone who attempted the McDonald’s fries expedition twice on one cold night, the spirit of insouciant entertaining stayed with me, wherever I went, however I changed. For a thirty-third birthday of a friend whose couch I was living on while cooking at Chez Panisse, I bought or made thirty-three items that could, if you squinted, made a meal. I’ve served troughs of polenta, pancakes, waffles, failed- and victorious fondues, things-on-sticks (yakitori, hot dogs, marshmallows), meals composed entirely from ingredients in cans. Two qualities unified all: they were crowded, since with a mess or muddle, more is better; and I hoped my guests would bond via a collective experience other than admiring my cooking.

I encourage you to invite your friends-to-be to share an experience that doesn’t involve you performing, without requiring them to each make a dish. Whenever I’m uncertain, I lean on alliteration. What about card games and crudités? Or card games and crepes? Or a hot, hot night of hot chocolate and hot dogs? Puzzles and pizza…or and pita (where you buy or make falafel and hummus and everyone stuffs their own)…or and pesto, or and popcorn (a big popcorn toppings bar!) Or, decide this is all too silly, and throw a polentata, or make meatballs and ricotta non-meat balls and sauce, and place both and loaves of split Italian bread on the counter for make-your-own subs. Or buy fifty corn tortillas, warm them, and set them beside hot beans, cheese, chilies, etc.

Dear cook, more than ever, we need to gather at each other’s tables, see each other’s faces, warm our hands together by the wood-stove, open our doors, stomp our boots and accept whatever invitation ushers us inside. You’re new to town at a moment that guides us to make connections anew. Follow the apocryphal example of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, and trust that the spirit in which you invite people will be the spirit in which they dine, on toast or cold fries or failed or victorious fondue…