Why Weekend Suppers?

Like most enthusiastic home cooks, I had (um, have) folders and binders and books full of recipes.

One year I decided to save the San Francisco Chronicle’s Thanksgiving article, the one with a menu plan, recipes, and a timeline for getting all the dishes on the table at once. Useful resource, right? When I went to add it to my recipe file, there they were: Thanksgiving timelines from multiple publications, dating back to at least 2002.

And yet, I had never hosted a Thanksgiving dinner. I would never dream of hosting a Thanksgiving dinner — the few dinner parties I’d hosted were way too stressful, and those weren’t even holidays.

That’s when it hit me. I kind of wanted to host more dinner parties. I wanted to enjoy the laughter of friends and family gathered around my dinner table, without being stressed. I wanted to try all the recipes I’d saved but never made because they required more than 30 minutes to prep and cook. And I would never do it if I didn’t set aside time in my life to practice.