Is the dinner party dead??

I'm not talking about a barbecue where the ladies are busy at the kitchen island, whilst the chaps are at the barbecue drinking beer while somebody burns a few sausages.

I mean a proper social occasion, inside or outside, sharing great company and great food!

Let’s Bring Back the Dinner Party

I'm talking about a proper dinner party.

The sort where you invite people into your home, cook something you actually care about, open a good bottle of wine and sit around a table for three or four hours.

No TV, no phones, no rushing off because you've got something else to do. Just good food, good wine, good beer and good company. Because something happens when people sit down and eat together that we seem to have forgotten.

We slow down, we talk, we laugh, we argue. We tell stories, and, every now and then, we actually listen to one another.

Is it because of a pressure that we feel we must excel in the kitchen perhaps. If that’s the case, then I think we've made food far too complicated. Somewhere along the way, we've convinced ourselves that entertaining people requires a bloody production.

We feel that we need the perfect table setting, the perfect menu, the perfect wine. And God forbid the food doesn't look like something you've just seen on Instagram.

But You don't. Surely all that is needed is a table and somewhere for people to sit, something good to eat, and people you actually enjoy spending time with.

That's pretty much it.

In fact, I'll go one step further. I'd rather eat a great sausage with good friends than a mediocre seven-course degustation with people I don't like.

Food is important. But the people you're eating it with are more important.

I've spent most of my working life around meat and food, and the older I get, the more convinced I am that food is about far more than what's on the plate.

Think about your strongest food memories.

I bet they aren't just memories of something that tasted good, I’ll bet they involve memories of people.

Your mum's roast. Your grandfather carving the Christmas ham. The laughter from friends gathered around a barbecue. A steak cooked outside on a summer evening. A pot of something slowly cooking while everyone stood around the kitchen drinking wine.

The meal probably isn't what you remember most, you remember who was there.

That's the magic of food.

It gives us a reason to gather, and I think this crazy world we are living in now means that we're desperately in need of more reasons to gather together and celebrate our families and friends..

We've somehow reached the point where we're permanently connected to everyone via our phones, except the people sitting right in front of us. We're scrolling through other people's lives while our own is happening across the table.

A dinner party gives you permission to switch off for a few hours, talk sport, politics, food. Or absolute nonsense. Tell the same stories you've told twenty times before. And laugh! That's what good company is.

We shouldn’t feel the need to cook to impress people. We are cooking to feed them.

There is a difference.

I don't want to spend an evening at your house watching you disappear into the kitchen every ten minutes because you're trying to create the perfect plate. I want you sitting at the table with me.

Give me a beautiful piece of beef, a bowl of potatoes, something green, some good bread and a decent bottle of wine. Put it all in the middle of the table. Let everyone help themselves. That's my kind of dinner!

You’re not seeking culinary perfection. Nobody cares. Particularly not your friends, they are there for the company.

Buy better. Cook simply. The classic Italian approach, beautiful ingredients, cooked simply. This is where I think a good butcher can make a difference.

Buy a beautiful piece of meat from an animal that has been properly raised. Know where it came from. Cook it simply.

There’s no need to bury it under seventeen sauces and a pile of unnecessary ingredients, let the meat taste like meat.

That's one of the reasons provenance matters to me.

When you know where something came from, who raised it and how it was produced, there's a story behind what's sitting on your plate. And food with a story is always better shared.

So here's my challenge

Don't wait for someone's birthday, or for Christmas.

Don't wait until you've renovated the kitchen, or until you've got the right plates.

Invite some people over. Buy a great piece of meat, cook it beautifully, make something simple alongside it. Open a good bottle. And then sit down. Talk, laugh, eat too much. tell some stories, and put the world to rights.

And if dinner runs until midnight, even better. You’re not simply having some friends around for dinner, you're actually doing something much more important.

You're making memories. You’re laughing, engaging, everything about the experience is positive, and these days, that can only be a good thing!