What Do We Eat When the Children Leave Town?

I hope you had a lovely weekend. Ours was pretty fantastic.

On Friday, we had friends over for dinner, and it was one of those old-fashioned, chatty evenings, with three conversations going on at once, and me trying not to miss any of them.

There were occasional interruptions from the children performing impromptu scenes from Hamilton which turned (at least for me, but everyone indulged) from cloying to cute.

Jack, five, as Aaron Burr in a very tiny voice, having little or no idea what the words his sister had taught him possible mean: “What if you’re backing the wrong horse?”

I mean.

I had so much fun that I forgot to take a single photograph.

The conversation moved from fabled film producers to Janet Malcolm’s interior-design column in The New Yorker in the 1970s—which I didn’t know existed—to my friend’s harrowing childhood recordings (her family ran a tape recorder all through on Christmas day), and the observation that our own children will have practically every moment of their lives available for instant replay should they ever wish to revisit their parents’ stupidities.

From there, we somehow got onto my time in an eating disorder recovery center, which was in hindsight, or at least in the telling, a comical experience.

Michael likes to ask me about the period when I was, as he puts it, “institutionalized.” This amuses him enormously. But it was also where I had to relearn how to eat, something I later learned to enjoy again thanks, in no small part, to my dear husband’s cooking.

Dinner parties! You never know where they’ll take you.

In last week’s piece about bringing back dinner-party culture, I listed all the ways I’ve found to make hosting less fuss and more fun. But I left out perhaps the most important—and certainly the most elusive—ingredient: the guest list.

Because how do you assemble a group of people who will actually have things to say to one another?

There needs to be some logic to the group, but not too much. People shouldn’t be too similar. For instance, inviting two separate friends because they come from the same country, for instance, was, when we set up this obviously natural match, surprisingly unsuccessful. “You’re both Italian!” is not actually a basis for friendship. If anything, it’s the opposite.

Better, I think, are people who inhabit overlapping worlds. If they know each other that’s great. But it’s enough that they might have friends in common, professions that bump up against each other, or simply the same appetite for gossip. You want enough common ground that nobody has to spend twenty minutes explaining who everyone is—but enough unfamiliarity that there is something left to discover.

The ideal guest list is perhaps a little like matchmaking: you need a theory, but you must never let anyone know you had one.

Saturday was wonderfully lazy apart from a child’s birthday party to attend, which, as anyone with children knows, disqualifies a day from being described as lazy.

And Sunday was pure bliss. We spent the day at the beach, which was calm enough for me to take Jack into the ocean, and we spotted a whale. Then home for tomato-sauce production: 40 POUNDS OF TOMATOES cooked down and packed away for winter.

This is the sort of wholesome domestic activity that makes you feel tremendously accomplished until you notice the kitchen looks like a murder scene.

And now something extraordinary is happening.

My children are going on a little holiday with Angie the nanny this week.

I’m finding this difficult to believe even as I type it. They have a full itinerary of theme-park fun ahead of them, which means Michael and I will have four days entirely alone. Four. Whole. Days.

What will we do differently?

Going to the beach will require approximately 83 percent less equipment.

Nobody will interrupt a conversation to ask where their goggles are.

Nobody will reject dinner on aesthetic grounds.

Okay, I miss them already.

But I’m hoping for a little painting, some extra gardening, catching up with friends, and a lot of writing. I have so many newsletters in mind—and so many excellent suggestions coming through in the comments—that choosing has become its own form of procrastination.

But this week I’ve settled on two:

I Know the Last Man Without a Cell Phone—about my friend Adrian, who has never owned one—not even a dumb one—and what his stubborn refusal to be permanently reachable has taught me about the supposedly easier lives the rest of us are living.

And:

My Favorite Vases—the ones I use most, what I put in them, and where to find them. Because one does occasionally need useful information around here.

And now, Meals & Moods.

We’ll be cooking for two when we normally cook for six, which means there is every possibility we will become deliciously lazy—unless Michael gets inspired.

We’re also officially in tomato-sauce-production mode. Of all the things we preserve, tomato sauce is the one that genuinely earns its freezer space: it disappears all winter into pasta, soups, stews, braises, and emergency dinners.

Monday — So Long, Farewell

Mood: Rainy, sentimental, and already checking to see whether they’ve arrived.

It’s raining, the children have just departed, and I predict an immediate collapse of standards.

Dinner: Freezer soup or a cheese-and-herb omelette, green salad, good bread.

Eaten in front of a movie because apparently the minute the children leave town, we become teenagers.

Tuesday — Michael Back From the City

Mood: Cocktail hour, but make it medicinal.

Michael gets back from the city. I hand him my new mocktail, we admire our eerie freedom for approximately twelve minutes, and then:

Dinner: Out.

Wednesday — Wait, This Is Our Last Night?

Mood: Mild panic about having insufficiently exploited our freedom.

How can four days already be almost over?

I want to pack a beautiful little supper and take it to the bay beach at golden hour.

Dinner: Cold roast chicken, tomato and peach salad, a hunk of cheese, baguette, something pickled.

Everything packed into a basket with proper napkins because we are alone, not feral.

Thursday — Welcome Home

Mood: Noise! Wet bathing suits! Someone asking for a snack while eating dinner! Bliss!

The children return, full of stories, and I will be pleased to have a noisy household again.

Dinner: Their favorite grilled pork tenderloin, tomato salad, corn, and crispy roasted potatoes.

Dessert: Caramel brownies.

A small bribe to ensure they remember that home has its attractions too.

Friday — Lobster Bake

Mood: Someone else is hosting and it will be FUN.

Our friends are having a lobster bake, and all I have to do is turn up.

Possibly the greatest mood of all.

Saturday — Big Brother Is in Town

Mood: Family table, summer edition.

Michael’s older son is visiting, so we’ll make a nice dinner at home.

Dinner: Whatever Nat, the fisherman (texting his catch), has caught that day—grilled whole fish if we’re lucky—with lemony potatoes, a huge tomato salad, and something green from the garden.

Dessert: Peaches with softly whipped cream. August needs very little assistance.

Sunday — Cookout

Mood: Everyone home, nowhere to be.

The kind of Sunday dinner that starts with someone lighting the grill at five and ends with people still sitting outside after dark.

Dinner: Grilled sausages, charred zucchini and eggplant, corn with butter and salt, tomato salad—because at this point we are legally required to eat tomatoes at every meal—and a big green salad.

Watermelon for dessert.

And then, I hope, that particular Sunday-night feeling I’m always chasing: everyone fed, everyone home, the week ahead not yet allowed through the gate.

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