Once upon a simpler time, hosting a dinner party meant cooking food and serving it to grateful guests. Those halcyon days are gone, replaced by an elaborate dance of dietary accommodations that would challenge the most seasoned UN diplomat.
Two weeks before your dinner party, send out a seemingly casual text: “Looking forward to having you over! Any food preferences I should know about?”
Prepare for responses ranging from “I’m easy, I eat anything!” (they don’t, and will mention their shellfish allergy as you’re serving the shrimp cocktail) to a manifesto detailing their 17-point food philosophy that somehow combines veganism, the paleo diet, and occasional pescatarianism “but only on full moons and if the fish was caught while the fisherman was humming Fleetwood Mac.”
Create a spreadsheet. You’ll need it.
Your dinner party is no longer about showcasing your culinary skills—it’s about creating a meal with the diplomatic complexity of the Treaty of Versailles.
Consider this actual guest list from my last gathering:
The solution? Deconstructed everything. Serve nothing that resembles a complete dish. Instead, present 37 small bowls containing individual ingredients and let guests assemble their own meals like some sort of culinary IKEA furniture.
Wake up at 5 AM on the day of your dinner party. You’ll need the extra hours to prepare the four different versions of each dish:
Label everything meticulously. Consider color-coding or, better yet, creating a tabletop map with a comprehensive legend.
As you present each dish, you must recite its ingredients with the precision of someone defusing a bomb. Miss the mention of butter, and you’ll spend the evening in the emergency room with Lactose-Intolerant Laura.
Pro tip: Have a backup plan for when you inevitably discover that your gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free brownies contain coconut, which Jared has suddenly remembered he’s avoiding this month “for inflammation reasons.”
Despite your best efforts, someone will use the wrong serving spoon. The vegan hummus will make contact with the non-vegan pita. All hell will break loose.
Prepare an emergency distraction: “Is that a rare bird outside?” or “Didn’t you just buy a Tesla? Tell us about its features!” work surprisingly well.
As your guests leave, they’ll thank you profusely for accommodating their needs. They’ll tell you everything was delicious. They’ll suggest doing this again soon.
And you, still finding quinoa in your hair and with the thousand-yard stare of someone who has spent 14 hours cooking seven different versions of the same meal, will smile weakly and say, “Absolutely! Next time at your place?”
Then you’ll order a pizza—with everything on it—and eat it standing over the sink, contemplating how your grandparents managed to host dinner parties serving nothing but meat, potatoes, and the vague threat of cultural disappointment.
You’ll receive texts from three guests informing you they’ve developed new food sensitivities overnight. One will attach a medical journal article. Another will send a link to a podcast hosted by a former wrestler turned nutrition guru.
You’ll smile, knowing that in six months when you’ve recovered enough to host again, the dietary landscape will have shifted entirely. Gluten might be back in favor. Dairy might be rehabilitated. Someone will be eating only foods that begin with the letter ‘P’.
And you’ll adapt, because that’s what we do now. You’ll buy more tiny bowls. You’ll learn about new obscure grains. You’ll master the art of making desserts that taste like disappointment but accommodate everyone’s restrictions.
Because in the end, breaking bread together—or gluten-free, yeast-free, low-carb bread substitute—is what brings us together, even as our dietary choices push our refrigerators further apart.