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> I detest smalltalk. Over dinner however, talk is deep and profound and often difficult and challenging.

Smalltalk is how you get to know a little about someone so you can move on to deeper things you both want to talk about. It's really unusual to just launch into deep conversation with someone you barely know.

Agreed. I used to think small talk was superficial, but it does serve a social purpose in mixed-company. It greases the wheel and initiates people into deeper conversation.

Without it, the atmosphere gets really intense really quickly, which can be weird unless you're among old friends or people who have high emotional intelligence to start with (can't always count on that).

A lot of people hate small talk because of their success rate of small talk. “How are you doing?”, “yeah it’s good, how have you been?” “Not too bad”. “...”

There are many good opening lines, but I've found that simply asking "How's your week been?" works much better than a "How are you" because it nudges people to to tell a story.

Then I ask questions about that story.

I'd certainly like to be better at it and I do try but those first minutes a stranger while you are searching for a common topic can be gruelling. I'd rather be introduced by friends who say "you both like X" and go from there.

Remember that everyone feels a little awkward meeting new people, and the first aim of small talk, before any other consideration, is to make the other person feel at ease. It's about them, not about you. You also have to have the courage to demonstrate genuine interest in others. If you only care about the ways that person relates to your particular interests, you will come off as disingenuous.

>before any other consideration, make the other person feel at ease

What excellent advice! My go-to line has been "what's been keeping you busy lately" which is a polite form of asking what someone "does" without making them them I only care what job they have.

That is how you should always interpret the "how are you?" question. Don't just say "I'm fine" - talk about what you did today, what you're going to do tonight, or tomorrow, or in the weekend. That's usually a good jumping off point to talk about some other topics.

Also: https://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/03/18/88-dinner-partie...

Except when "how are you?" just means "hi".

I really like this twist, I'm going to start using it myself. Thanks!

It's really unusual to just launch into deep conversation with someone you barely know.

It's not that unusual for me. This might be part of why people seem to have strong reactions to me, whether positive or negative. I am pretty terrible at small talk.

Me either. In my experience, being willing to be the first one to open up goes a long way in making people open up to you and establish some trust that, for example, I won't be judging people etc. But I do try to never, ever, discuss politics or religion. That's a one-way route to bad tempers.

I generally don't discuss politics. I am careful how I discuss religion. I also find that being side by side or sitting at a 90 degree angle instead of face to face reduces the sense of confrontation. It also helps if you are doing other things while talking.

I usually am only trying to make conversation. I am slow to judge and I tend to assume people do things for a reason. So I don't dump a bunch of shame and guilt on people.

I also default to talking about me rather than about other people. It gets me accused of being self centered and crap like that, but I find it to be the least worst option, vastly less problematic than talking about other people.

For someone who dislikes smalltalk, the ideal is for their conversational partner to maintain the discussion until a topic that interests them is brought up. Between two people, this is perhaps insolvent, but with a larger group, some of whom may already know each other, it is perfectly feasible to wait until you have something to say to speak.

If you're one of the hosts, it's also perfectly acceptable to say just a few words at the start and then proceed to occupy yourself with the logistics of the dinner.

Even the legendary romance between T'sais and Etarr began with Etarr saying thus: "Tell me of yourself." Small talk is hugely important.

Who? I tried googling the names separately and together and didn't come up with anything that appeared to be bios or whatever about people with those names.

I'm guessing it's from Dying Earth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dying_Earth

I think what GP is saying is that he/she finds smalltalk less awkward at the dinner table compared to other settings, or maybe that less smalltalk is needed before going deeper when there's dinner involved. Which is understandable because food serves as a great icebreaker as well as a natural topic of conversation.

I have had amazing dinner parties with zero planning. Maybe it's because of different cuisine. In my case the first zero planning dinner party I went to was a nabe (hotpot) party. On the way to the friends house we all (10 of us) pitched in like $3-$4 each, we stopped at the supermarket, got a few things, go back to the friends house, dumped them in the hotpot. Yes, you need a hotpot but a burner + pot is < $20 in many parts of Asia (and in the USA too if you go to an Asian supermarket)

I've done the other kind too with more planning and a day or 2 of cooking too. Just suggesting that you can also do it without the planning and hours of cooking.

Potluck dinners are just as enjoyable. That mood of sociability still happens if everyone brings a dish, and the commentary about them can be a conversation starter. It's amazing how unforgettable such meals can be.

You can even plan the menu and make specific asks for each friend — you are on salad, you are on dessert, you are on beer, you are on wine, and the house provides the main. Simple. We’ve also tried catering and it is fine but it feels less intimate.

> For those who don't think they can cook: it's a combination of understanding food chemistry and following instructions.

Or, in the words of Auguste Gusteau: "Anyone can cook."

You don't even need to understand chemistry. Understand techniques and the rest becomes really simple.

My mother always says 'pastry is an exact science, cooking is a liberal art'.

Cooking a meal is more about tasting, technique than the exact amount of ingredients. Pastry is a different beast, it you don't use the exact amounts or time chances are your dish will fail.

That is very true. Baking can go really wrong if you are not precise.

I would disagree slightly with this, one recipe I made used the reaction between the baking soda and the buttermilk to provide the "fluffyness", since I wasn't aware I didn't finish the prep fast enough to get it into the oven while it was still internally foaming, and ended up with a very short and dense cake. Had someone said, "You want to be sure to be baking before the sodium bicarbonate stops reacting." that would have clued me into the time constraint based on the chemistry.

The thing that bugs me about these commonly cited pieces of information about cooking is I have a hard time verifying them without a lot of experimentation. I took up making waffles in the morning following the common buttermilk + baking soda + baking powder recipe. One day I was kind of groggy and forgot to add baking soda; and I could not tell the difference. The whole food writing / recipe sector lost a lot of credibility for me that day.

Well the basic thing going on is "acid + base". Baking powder contains both (baking powder is baking soda + cream of tartar - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium_bitartrate), and starts reacting when water is added (try it).

Baking soda is a base, and reacts with buttermilk which is acidic.

It's not clear to me why some recipes contain both acid+baking soda and baking powder. Maybe they're worried that the first combination isn't sufficient?

My breakfast this morning used yoghurt + baking soda ;) (бухти)

I think one of them has a delaying effect which kicks, need to google it

baking powder has a delayed effect, activated by heat.

Some people learn the technique, others learn the chemistry and physics behind the technique.

As per my answer above, you just need to know a very high level food related chemistry -- not even actual chemistry, just how different foods (plants, meats, sauces, etc) react to heat/water/cold and how they interact between them.

There have been untold number of cooks who know nothing about actual chemistry beyond "water = H2O", including tons of professional chefs all over the world. In fact any chef before like early 20th century or so wouldn't know the first thing about chemistry proper unless they've studied chemistry -- heck chemistry became a real discipline after the 18th century, but exquisite cooking has been with us for millennia.

Understanding the chemistry and physics makes it a lot easier to figure out when something is going wrong and how to fix it. This is particularly true when adjusting temperatures and cooking times.

If you haven’t before, check out PBS’s America’s Test Kitchen. Perfect blend of the chemistry/food science and some really good cooks and explanations behind tradition.

For me it was more the chemistry informed the technique.

When you know there is going to be too much time between mixing baking soda and citric/lactic/whatever acid is being used, use baking powder. It has the alkaline soda and acid pre-mixed together, but does not fully activate until heat is applied.

If you learn the technique you will learn this too. But I think we are mostly in agreement here. Nothing wrong with undertanding chemistry but cooking is more than theory it's a performing arts.

>You don't even need to understand chemistry

Parent said "understand food chemistry", which I understand not to be the chemistry of food as it relates to molecules and chemical reaction chains, but rather something more basic: this thing can soak too much oil, this burns quickly even in moderate fire, this food gets soggy if you put in this before that, and such things.

"Food chemistry" generally means the chemical reactions in food -- the actions of acids and bases, fats, gluten, starch and so on.

My mother studied food chemistry at college, so childhood baking generally included 20 seconds of explanation on why something I was about to do would make a mess. ("If you don't do X, the protein in won't coagulate and it will all fall apart.")

This mostly applied to baking, cooking eggs, or making a roux. The rest doesn't really matter.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_chemistry

From the context, it pretty sure means how sauces and flavours fit together, not knowing the actual molecules.

> it takes a week of planning, a full day or two of cooking

not to mention the cleaning up is a good 3-4h after (or the next morning)

respect for those who can fit it in their schedule. i know i have no excuse because the author of the article is a restaurateur in NY which surely means a 365-day-a-year commitment to her business. where she finds time, i don't know. i sometimes feel like i can't do it and i definitely don't work every day.

I usually manage to clean up ¾ of the mess the same night: I dump everything that will fit in the dishwasher and set it to start overnight. In the morning, I empty it, and the rest of the stuff goes in the dishwasher.

Then I put away the liqueur bottles, wipe down the table, and replace the chairs. What other mess is there, beyond routine cleaning?

It's the same as any other serious family activity. Going on a camping trip, having a big garage sale, or decorating your house for Halloween can take just as much planning and cleanup as a dinner party. If you can take day off or take advantage of a long weekend to do these things, great! If not, you probably have different priorities and that's fine too.

What makes dinner talk more profound than regular talk?