From Matthew Fort Q. I cooked a serious dinner —
four courses, lots of fancy gear — and asked six people round to share it. Four turned up at 8 p.m. as requested (I had intended to start eating at 8.30). The third couple rang up to say they were running late and that we should start without them. Should I have been outraged that they couldn’t be bothered to turn up on time and sat down without them? Or should I have waited for them to arrive and carried on as if nothing had happened?
A. It is one thing cooking to schedule on your television show, Market Kitchen, but a different matter in today’s real life where perceived personal dramas — or real traffic ones — mean a percentage of guests will always be late unless they have been given a false deadline. This small deceit is forgivable where sumptuous fayre of the type you conjure up is involved. As they had failed to give one, you should have relieved the latecomers of their stress by going ahead without them, so that at least those palates present, correct and primed to receive the perfectly timed offerings could be gratified by them.
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