stupid question department: yes, there will be turkey. Because it's Thanksgiving, that's why.

The first question: why is it so difficult to get people together for dinner? There have been several waves of interest in the life and works of Julia Child recently, and I thought it would be fun to cook some of the recipes from Mastering the Art Vol. I for a group of convivial souls. With lovely wines. I also thought that in keeping with the "retro" theme, I would actually telephone the prospective guests at their homes to invite them, rather than use any of the group email tools. Here are some of the responses I got:

• We're out of town every weekend, why not do it during the week?


• Mark takes his very expensive specialist wine course Monday nights, can you do it Tuesday?


• I babysit my new baby granddaughter every other Tuesday so my son and daughter-in-law can work on their marriage.  


• Stewie and I are in couples counseling, we go Wednesday nights, how about on a Thursday?


• But I've gained 5 pounds and Thursday is one of my gym nights. I'd love to come on Friday.


• Tuesday doesn't work, we have opera/ballet/avant-garde theatre subscription every other Tuesday night.


• We go to a group cultural dinner Friday nights, would you like to join us? Or we could do it Sunday night?


• Oh, you didn't know, we're closing the business and moving to the Bahamas.

I have to tell you, to my best knowledge, all of these people were happy and normal and well-mannered and sociable until I called them and asked them to come sit around my table and ingest food. For instance, I didn't know GF's husband was actually taking a course to be a wine bore, I thought he was achieving it nicely on his own. But one phone call, and people seemed annoyed that I was interfering with the well-organized small and large tragedies of their lives. And no, I don't think having pot roast without the prayers counts as a spiritual experience (unless it's my pot roast, which has been described as heavenly). And no, I don't think snoring in an expensive seat at Lincoln Center counts as a cultural epiphany.

So having been asked repeatedly to change one dinner for 10 or 12 into 8 or 9 dinners for 4, 2 of whom need to be working each dinner, I tabled the project so that I would have plenty of time to sulk. Lately, though, I've been trying to feel festive and thought cooking for a group might help so I resuscitated the project. But I wanted to avoid the phone calls, so I thought I'd send around a calendar page where people could initial the nights they were available, I'd collate, and majority would rule. Of course I couldn't do this. So back to phone calls. I forgot about office parties, extra shrink sessions, other people's families, annual galas that require a week of preparation... Do you want to learn all the boring-to-awful details of the lives of your friends? Ask them to dinner. Do you want to learn about the psychic insides of your friends? Ask them to dinner. And do you want to know about the physical innards of your friends?

Yup, ask them to dinner.

The other issue that I've been pondering lately is why the same people who are so eager to tell you and anyone else within earshot that they are vegetarian, salt-free, vegan, gluten-free, lactose intolerant, fat-free, don't eat veal, egg-free, don't eat beef, don't eat carbs, don't eat poultry, don't eat this fish, don't eat that fish, don't eat t'other fish, don't eat that cuisine because of fear of the unknown - are  offended when I explain that in my view dining out on sushi is economically inefficient because good sushi is astoundingly expensive by the time you get enough to eat, and less-than-really-good-sushi isn't worth doing.

that's what she said, right?
eat steak?

If your chicken has to have a provenance, let me eat steak. And if you're dying to see us and catch up on how we've been, let's do it around a table, not at a counter. But if you deign to come to my house, and don't want to eat what's on the table, then bring a sandwich and don't make a big deal of it. And there is no lactose in cheese, I looked it up.

I make an exception of course for religious proscriptions, and for those with truly life-threatening allergies. I don't want anyone struck dead at my dinner table, whether by lightening or by a peanut. Or by me if I've been slaving away all day and you've just had a revelation that all your troubles are caused by protein.

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