Hosting begins and ends, as all things do, in delusion. The delusion that your kitchen, with its two functioning hobs, one suspect chair, and half a packet of linguine, can sustain ten or more hungry guests. You picture the night in your head: candles breathing their dim little lights into the corner of the room, glasses half-full and catching what little gleam the candles offer, laughter spilling over; and you, the essence of calm and composed, presiding over it all as if the world were, for once, something within your control.
Of course, all of this is wishful thinking. The day arrives and the illusion begins to crack as soon as your first guest knocks on the door. The kitchen, which on ordinary days manages to pass as tolerable, suddenly shows its flaws. A broken shelf, the freezer door that will not close properly, and the radiator in the corner that does not turn off. You thought you’d planned it well, but there is always too little of something. Too little wine, too little salt in the food, too little space to stand without being in someone’s way. And yet, the guests arrive in a timely manner, stamping out the rain before stepping inside, handing you their little peace offerings; usually a bottle of wine or a box of chocolates; and no sooner does the room feel that much more alive.
Music choice is quintessential, though it is less a matter of taste than of control. The right song regulates the room; dictates the cadence of conversation, how long a pause can last before it becomes uncomfortable and whether people lean in or sink back. Play something faintly nostalgic without being too sentimental, something that carries a bit of grit. A jangling guitar line and a steady rhythm can go a long way.
There’s a collage of borrowed chairs around the table, chipped plates, the cutlery was left behind by the last tenants. Empty wine bottles scatter the table linen as the proletarian alternative to the candle holders lost in your last move. All of which is part of the charm. Someone sits cross-legged on the counter, another gestures valiantly with a fork while recounting an implausible story. The kitchen hums with the sound of the living.
There comes a point, somewhere between pouring the first glass and nearly burning your pan, when you realize that hosting has little to do with food. You could very well serve toast, so long as it is done with conviction. It need not be elaborate, only generous. Roast vegetables tossed and seasoned, a tray of pasta with pesto, bread broken in hands instead of sliced, these are the things that will sustain the night. Anything requiring precise timing, fiddly techniques, or elaborate plating will collapse under the pressure of eager mouths and a single oven.
For my Americans, those of you away from home celebrating Thanksgiving at the end of the month, the concept of a “banging dinner party” may sound deceptively familiar. It is not. There is no big turkey enough to impress your neighbors, no aisle in the corner shop stacked with cranberry sauce and certainly no cavernous dining room to accommodate extended family without elbowing someone’s shoulder or spilling gravy on the only white table cloth you own. The closest approximation is shoving the couches in the hallway.
The meal, afterall, is never the thing; the thing is the gathering, the conversation and attention that holds the whole evening upright. You, the host, ostensibly in command, should be as much a participant as any other. The true sustenance is the attention we give each other, the small fleeting, kindnesses of conversing, sharing and making room for one another. Which is to say, the very thing that will leave the kitchen in disarray and the host exhausted, is, for a moment, almost vindicated.
