The Panic Page

You will get one thing wrong. Here are the five it is most likely to be, and what to do. Read this on Thursday so it is in your head on Friday.

1. You are running fifteen minutes late

Every recipe in this library is built to survive this; that is why it is in the library. Do not turn the oven up. Do not apologise more than once. Say: it has another fifteen minutes, do you want a drink? Then pour, sit, and talk. That is the most useful sentence we have ever written. Use it with a straight face.

2. Something burned

First question: the whole thing, or the edge? The edge: trim it, plate the good side up, sauce goes under so nobody is looking at the bottom. The whole thing: off the heat, window open, and check what is still fine. Potatoes gone but the chicken is good? Chicken on the salad with bread and the feta on top. The dish was never the plan. The evening was.

3. She is early

Twenty minutes early and you are in an apron with a wet counter. Open the door anyway. Take her coat. Say: you are early, which is great, because now you get a drink while I finish. Pour from the pitcher, hand it over, and go back to exactly where you were. Five minutes of you finishing something while she sits at the counter with a cold drink is a nicer scene than most finished kitchens.

4. She does not eat something you cooked

She is vegetarian and it never came up, or she hates olives, or she is allergic to the feta. First rule: nobody is wrong and nobody apologises. Second rule: every recipe here has a vegetarian swap on the card, and most of what is on the tray is already fine. Potatoes, bread, salad, the starter: there is always a plate. Say: no problem, I have got you, and make it. Handling this without fuss is what hosting is.

5. The smoke alarm

It happens to everyone who has ever used a broiler. Do not flap a towel at it while she watches. Window open, fan on, the reset button or the battery out for ten minutes. Then one line: that is the smoke alarm telling us dinner is nearly ready. Laugh once, pour the drink, carry on. The food is almost never affected. The alarm is loud, not smart.

If it truly fails

Sometimes it is gone. The pot hit the floor, the chicken is raw in the middle with no time left, the oven died. Here is the move: say it out loud, laugh at yourself, and order in. Two meals from the place around the corner, on your real plates, candle lit, music on, table already set. Pour the second spritz. The evening was never about the chicken. It was about her sitting in an apartment where someone had thought about her before she arrived. That part already happened.

Keep in reserve, every time

• A good loaf of bread and good butter. Fixes a short plate, a late plate or a raw plate.
• A bag of salad and a dressing you did not make.
• The number of a place that delivers in thirty minutes.
• A second round in the pitcher.