A guide to throwing the kind of table where no one looks at their phone, and the candles stay lit until midnight.
It started, as most good things do, as a smaller idea. Four of us for dinner on Friday. Then five. Then someone mentioned they were visiting a friend. Then that friend had a cousin in town.
By Thursday evening there were thirty-two names on a napkin and a quantity of bread to source that required a separate conversation with the baker.
The table we built in the garden was not beautiful. It was a door on trestles, covered in linen, lined with candles stuck into wine bottles. It was exactly right. The food was simple enough that it could be prepared ahead: a cold soup, a roast, three salads, cheese.
What I have learned from years of hosting tables like this: the quality of a dinner is inversely proportional to the complexity of the food. The more I try to impress, the less people relax. The more I give them something familiar and good, the longer they stay.