Grown-Ass Adult Dinner

A Lovely Meal to Share with Family and Friends

A few years ago, a brilliant solution to a pesky conundrum showed up on social media:

This menu was all over the internet, but I got this particular image here.

While some people find this menu sexist, I think it demonstrates that the pressure on women to always be watching our weight hurts men too. The belief that women should be dainty and abstemious—waifs who subsist on salad and cottage cheese (again! why oh why is cottage cheese back?!)—leads to a lot of fry-snitching by hungry girlfriends, which their boyfriends understandably don’t appreciate. I wish we women could quit it with nibbling prettily on “girl dinners” as though we require nothing more than a pickle, a sprig of parsley, and a handful of almonds to sustain ourselves. This week, I hope to encourage us all—women and men alike—to indulge our appetites and to enjoy a hearty meal together with gusto!

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Instead of “Girl Dinner” Alone, Let’s Feast with Friends

For readers unfamiliar with the phenomenon, “girl dinner” is a trend on Instagram and TikTok, in which young women post decorative assemblages of light fare—raw vegetables, a couple of olives, maybe a slice of cheese or prosciutto, and a cracker or some such—and brag to their followers that this is their dinner. As is too often the case on social media, there was a backlash, and then a backlash to the backlash. I have been swept up into the fray, because to me “girl dinner” is a pernicious concept. There is a better way.

First off, as a Gen-X feminist, I am troubled that it is so acceptable to refer to adult women as girls—and that it is more often women than men who call women girls. Yes, yes, I know, girl power and all that. But “girl” when applied to adults is literally infantilizing. We women are grown-ass adults, the same as men are. Calling women girls suggests that we are cute and petite and nonthreatening, that we giggle and flirt and flit about whimsically.¹ But I digress.

Because I have the metabolism of a hummingbird, I love to eat. To me, “girl dinner” is not a meal so much as a little snack to nosh on while you make your actual dinner. If I had my druthers, all of my dinners would be “teenage boy dinner” or “college football player dinner” or “Michael Phelps dinner.” However, the concept of the “girl dinner” is destructive for women with normal-sized appetites too. “Girl” implies that our appetites are (or ought to be) as tiny as our bodies are (or ought to be). Our culture can make women feel gross and greedy for eating a sufficient amount of food. “Girl dinner,” by contrast, conjures up images of a frail beauty pecking sparrow-like at her seeds and scraps. In fact there is a distinctly pro-ana vibe to these sparse little dinners, in particular the way women posting these pictures show off their meager meals to other women. The “girl dinner” implies that it is more important for women to look good than to feel good.

I’ll admit to another bias: I love to cook and share meals with friends. But I am forced to acknowledge that based on the comments to the New York Times article linked above, many people don’t share that love. People who work long hours and parents of young kids clearly appreciate—with good reason—that the “girl dinner” can be put together without much work, by just throwing together a few bits and bobs one has lying around the fridge. Fair enough.

When my kids were little, this thought did cross my mind on occasion.

And yet, we can avoid the tedious grind of cooking every single day and still enjoy a real meal rather than resorting to those bits and bobs. The trick is to make extra food for dinner so that we have leftovers for the next few days. And unlike the “girl dinner,” a good, plentiful meal allows us to share our food and conversation with other people rather than sitting alone scrolling through photos of aspirationally tiny dinners on our phones as we pick and nibble.

Grown-Ass Adult Dinner

Below are recipes for a meal I made for some dear friends last weekend. While it may seem like this dinner involves a lot of effort, everything can be prepared ahead, and the recipes don’t require much chopping or fussing. Plus, you put everything straight into the serving dishes, to minimize cleanup. These recipes produce a tremendous quantity of leftovers, so if you don’t enjoy cooking, you will be able to shirk kitchen duty for a couple of days after this meal. The dinner is satisfying and healthy and makes the most of summer’s bounty—and everything is delicious too, if I do say so myself.

A special advantage to this meal for summer is that you will not overheat your kitchen; the stove will only be on for about half an hour total, and you can roast the strawberries for the dessert early in the morning or the evening before, when it’s cooler outside. In addition, this meal is gluten-free, and everything except the salmon is vegetarian. If you’re dining alone, there’s no need to make every recipe; either the salmon or the quinoa salad with the caprese salad makes a perfect summer meal.

Have I convinced you to forgo a spartan “girl dinner” and indulge yourself and your friends? Good! Let’s get cooking!

Greek-Style Quinoa Salad

My husband likes to joke that any time you see “Greek style,” you know that the dish will have feta cheese. Yes, plus dill, olives, and lemon zest too, which is why this salad is so flavorful.

Ingredients

1c quinoa, rinsed in a sieve

2c water

1tsp salt

1 small red bell pepper, finely diced

1-15oz/400gm can chick peas, rinsed in a sieve

juice and zest of 1 lemon

1/4c olive oil

1 small garlic clove, finely minced with 1tsp salt to make a paste

plenty of freshly ground black pepper

a packed 1/2c total (or more, to taste) of fresh dill, Italian flat-leaf parsley, and oregano leaves, coarsely chopped

about 15 Kalamata olives (or more, to taste), pitted and coarsely chopped

about 4oz/50gms feta cheese (or more, to taste), crumbled

Method

1. Put the quinoa, water, and salt in a kettle and boil until there is no more water above the surface of the quinoa. Remove from heat and cover for 5 minutes, then fluff up a bit. Allow to cool for about 15 minutes.

2. Put the chopped bell pepper in a large serving bowl and add the warm quinoa. Mix thoroughly to heat the pepper through.

3. Add in the chick peas and stir.

4. Mix the lemon zest and juice, the olive oil, the garlic, and the ground pepper in a small bowl and then pour over the quinoa. Mix thoroughly.

5. When the quinoa has cooled down to room temperature, add in the herbs, olives, and feta and mix. Cover and chill. Remove from fridge half an hour before serving.

Poached Salmon

Ingredients

1 small yellow onion, sliced into rings

1/4c olive oil

1c good-quality dry white wine

juice from 1 lemon

1tsp salt

water

several whole sprigs of dill and Italian flat-leaf parsley

4 8oz/225gm (approximate size) salmon filets with skin on

lemon wedges

Method

1. In a very large skillet, sauté onion rings in olive oil until soft. Do not brown.

2. Mix the wine, salt, and lemon juice and add enough water to make about 4c. Pour over onion in pan.

3. Add in the dill and parsley and bring to a boil.

4. Carefully place the salmon filets on top of the herbs and cover the pan. Turn heat down to medium-low and simmer for about 15 minutes, until salmon is cooked through.

5. Remove salmon from pan and place on a serving platter (some of the onion and herbs will come along for the ride; this is ok). Cool to room temperature and then cover and refrigerate.

6. Remove from fridge about half an hour before serving. Some liquid will probably have oozed out below the salmon—just blot it up with a paper towel. Serve the salmon with lemon wedges.

Dill Sauce

In a small serving bowl, combine the following (all measures are approximate—feel free to customize!): 1/2c full-fat Greek yogurt; 1/4c sour cream (save the rest of the sour cream in the container for the dessert below); 1/4c capers, drained and coarsely chopped; 1T mustard; juice and zest from half a lemon; 1 very small garlic clove, finely chopped with 1tsp salt to make a paste; lots of freshly-ground black pepper; and lots of chopped fresh dill and Italian flat-leaf parsley. Taste and adjust seasonings if necessary. Cover and chill until time to serve.

Caprese Salad

Do you really need a recipe for this? Well, ok. Here’s what I do:

I like to plate the salads individually,² but to save time you can also put everything on a large platter. Thinly slice ripe tomatoes³ and lay the slices flat on a plate—three slices per plate if you are making up individual portions, or three per person if you are making a single platter. Top each tomato slice with a slice of fresh mozzarella. Coarsely chop lots of fresh basil and sprinkle it over everything. Finally, grind black pepper and salt over everything and drizzle each portion with olive oil. (Do NOT use balsamic vinegar! Some restaurants drown the salad in balsamic vinegar, overwhelming the delicate flavors; I have no earthly clue why they do this. Balsamic vinegar on caprese salad is an abomination.) Leave the salads out for half an hour or so to do the Vulcan flavor meld, and then serve.

A Fabulous Dessert

I am not usually a dessert person—I much prefer a cheese course to sweets—but last week as I was casting about for a gluten-free dessert for my friend, I serendipitously ran across the following recipe, which is light and delightful, and which showcases the strawberries that are so flavorful right now. The recipe’s creator, Spencer, suggests that gluten-free guests will enjoy this dessert with toasted, chopped almonds sprinkled over the top.

Roasted Strawberries and Cream

Perfect Timing

You can make nearly everything for this meal in advance:

• The day before your dinner, make the quinoa salad. It can sit, covered, in the fridge overnight.

• Then, in the morning, before it gets too hot, poach the salmon and refrigerate.

• Roast the strawberries according to Spencer’s recipe. When the strawberry goo is cool, pour it into a glass jar or other large container (the recipe makes a lot of goo) and store in the fridge.

• Make the dill sauce and refrigerate.

It’s almost showtime! Half an hour before your guests arrive:

• Assemble a cheese platter (I like to include one hard cheese, Brie or Camembert, and marinated goat cheese). Put your favorite bread and crackers in a basket and set the cheese platter and bread basket on the table.

• Pour yourself a glass of crisp, dry white wine, beer, or a favorite nonalcoholic drink and make the caprese salad. No need to refrigerate; you can leave the caprese salads out on the counter until it’s time to serve them.

• When your guests arrive, greet them with a glass of wine, beer, or a favorite nonalcoholic drink and conduct them to the table, where the cheese platter awaits them. Dart back into the kitchen and take the quinoa salad and salmon out of the fridge (they taste best at about room temperature). Enjoy wine and cheese with your friends!

• Then, when there’s a lull in the conversation and the cheese supplies are sadly diminished, bring out the caprese, quinoa salad, salmon, and dill sauce to the oohs and ahs of your guests.

• As dinner is winding down, duck into the kitchen and whip the cream. Spoon the cream into bowls and top each portion with a couple of spoonfuls of the roasted strawberries, a sprinkle of toasted almonds, and a sprig of basil. Your guests will be in raptures.

For the next day or two you will have plenty of quinoa salad left over for lunch, and you’ll probably have some salmon and dill sauce too. This makes a great sandwich! If you didn’t invite me over to eat it all up, you will likely still have some caprese salad left too, which is also good in a sandwich, or you can tear up the mozzarella and serve the leftover caprese over rotini pasta with a bit of olive oil and Parmesan. And for the sweet tooths (teeth?) out there, you can ladle the leftover strawberry goo and strew the remaining toasted almonds over pancakes or French toast for a nice brunch treat.

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How about you, readers? What is your favorite grown-ass adult dinner? What is your favorite indulgence? Or are you more of a “girl dinner” type? Please share your thoughts in the comments!

The Tidbit

Speaking of weight, isn’t it more fun to share the weight than to watch our weight? Enjoy this moving, international performance—the musicians come from ten countries on five continents—of Robbie Robertson’s classic song, “The Weight.” And watch to the end to see Robertson’s radiant smile at a job well done.

1. Not that there’s anything wrong with that! But there’s more to us than just being sweet and pleasing.

2. This is to protect my guests from my depredations. I love caprese salad so much that I have been known to devour far more than my fair share.

3. If you are lucky enough to live somewhere where they grow green and yellow tomatoes, it is especially nice to have red, green, and yellow slices on the plate.