Super recipes for...supper - Telegraph The business of what we cook - and of inviting people to share food with us - sends specific social messages. I find it such a minefield. I have sometimes asked people if they would like to 'come round for something to eat', though that conjures up pictures of us all sitting on the floor gnawing, caveman-like, on bones. I don't mean to sound like a savage, but if I issue an invitation to 'dinner' they might think that I'm going to do five courses on my best china. If they are asked for 'supper' they might think that they'll just get an omelette. I mean, what is supper exactly? About 15 years ago I became aware of another type of social gathering with food. I listened to a voicemail message from someone I barely knew inviting me to a 'kitchen supper'. 'Goodness,' I said to my partner, 'do you think we'll just get beans on toast?' I reasoned that 'kitchen supper' would surely come further down the pecking order than 'supper' (since it sounds even more casual) and concluded that I wasn't going to cross London for a meal that had come out of a tin. Nowadays we're all cooking, and inviting friends, to casual meals. We rarely use dining-rooms (that's if we even have them). We don't dress up to eat. We cook surrounded by our friends and eat at the kitchen table. Whether you call this 'supper' or 'kitchen supper', it has been a great development - it is democratic and we eat proper food instead of fussy stuff that has given the hostess palpitations. (Though I also suspect there's some inverted snobbery at work. Dinner parties were once a way of keeping up with the Joneses, showing off a bit. Now we realise that the most impressive thing is not to try to impress.) I like the odd dinner party because it means I can cook difficult dishes and set the table with a white linen cloth. But I'm glad that we've been released from the demands of formal entertaining. Simple meals, eaten in the chaos of the kitchen, allow you to see your friends even after a frazzling day's work. But it's hard to come up with dishes that show you've made a bit of effort (you do care about your friends, after all) but not too much. Classic 'supper dishes', such as shepherd's pie or lasagne, sound casual but take too much time. I am always trying to think of easy mid-week supper dishes to give to friends. A blend of cooking ahead and at the last minute is what I'm after. And it has to be quick. These are the latest. So get on the phone and ask your friends to 'come round for something to eat'...