BWW Cooks: Feeding Foodie Friends and Relations This Christmas

It's coming up on Christmas, and the worst has come to pass. Your Cousin Lenny from Brooklyn (or Dupont Circle, or WeHo) is coming to visit for a couple of days. Cousin Lenny, the foodie. The guy who posts Facebook pictures of himself buying artisanal pickles and extolling the virtues of some butter made on a commune in Ohio. And you have to feed him. Bad enough, of course, that you have to find a restaurant that you think he won't sneer at... but cooking for him? You've never taken a cooking class at the local kitchen shop, much less with Masaharu Morimoto - what's a home cook to do?

Breakfast is easy if you own a waffle iron. Waffles are in. Anything you can put in a waffle iron can be waffled. A chef friend waffles his cornbread recipe. A talented home cook friend waffles his turkey dressing post-Thanksgiving. If you live in an area of the country with a Waffle House and Lenny doesn't - chances are he doesn't if there are enough artisanal pickle makers and artisanal fresh cider pressers and butter churners where he lives - then take him to Waffle House. The combination of fresh waffles and cheap diner atmosphere will intrigue him.

As for the rest, there's a simple rule of thumb. What beer does Lenny drink? Is it Pabst Blue Ribbon (or some other cheaper beer) drunk ironically, is it Stella Artois or a local brew that can only be found at the local craft brewery in his neighborhood, or does he drink wine instead? Knowing this, you can know what to cook.

Let's start with Lenny the wine drinker. Ask him to bring the wine for dinner, one of his favorites, and to let you know what it is; you'll plan the meal around the wine. When I say wine drinker, I don't mean Arbor Mist. If he does drink Arbor Mist, on the other hand, suspect he's not the foodie he claims to be. Just cook what you ordinarily would, and don't drink the Arbor Mist with it unless it's extremely casual fare.

If he's a true wine lover, research the wine and what foods it's best served with, and then plan a very simple menu of that food, fairly plain fare, to highlight the wine. It's a white best served with fish? Fresh fish, perhaps trout Meuniere. Pan fried with a light sauce. A fresh green vegetable, something seasonal, maybe roasted Brussels sprouts. Do an interesting starch, like a freekeh pilaf. Most of the popular grains cook generally the same way you'd cook rice. Let Lenny's wine be the star of the meal. If you've used quality ingredients, the simplicity is key. And these are things that are within almost all of our cooking repertoires.

Chicken? Do a perfectly roasted whole chicken, with the usual accompaniments, just being sure that they're fresh. Beef? A roast, or if he's bringing a red wine, a beef bourgignon. It's not true, by the way, that you must cook with the wine you're serving - that can be insanely expensive. But it should be the same general type of wine.

The key is to realize that a real lover of good food and wine, one who's not obsessed by the latest food trend or newest pickle, appreciates simple dishes as much if not more than the most complex ones. And he won't want them to clash with his wine, as a more complicated preparation might. He'd rather have a well-prepared roast chicken than the most exotic preparation.

If he's not really a wine snob, but just drinks wine generally, the same menu still works. The same principle still applies. Serve food that will complement the wine you're serving, and keep it simple and well-prepared.

He's an ironic PBR drinker? Don't worry. He's probably not as serious a foodie as he claims to be; he's more likely a hipster, or simply follows trends. Give him trendy diner fare, or church cookbook fare. Consult Jane and Michael Stern's SQUARE MEALS - you must own a copy of SQUARE MEALS - or the classic, ever-faithful I HATE TO COOK BOOK by Peg Bracken. It is, of all things, one of my most-used cookbooks, and the one I've given the most frequently as a gift. It's also funny as sin, and you will let Lenny read it. After he has meatloaf and mashed potatoes, or fried chicken. A church cookbook casserole from a small-town church cookbook will also suit, and you can let Lenny admire the recipes, which he'll find fascinating. He might even be up for canned-food casseroles. Hipsters never eat Jello salad in their enclaves, but its history will intrigue them, and they'll be up for trying this exotic fare. And take him out to a Greek diner, or for pork chops at Waffle House. It's so retro, it's nouveau. And that's what he'll be game for.

But what if Lenny is an exacting beer drinker who knows what he likes and what he wants? And you're no chef? Go ethnic or regional - embrace your roots cooking. If you're a Southerner, do a Smithfield ham, a real one. Beaten biscuits, gravy, the works. If you're a Yankee or from Down East, fresh regional seafood. Lobster salad, lobster pie, clam chowder, brown bread or cornbread. You're Jewish? If Lenny doesn't like real matzo ball soup, nobody does. Italian? Just cook. He'll eat it. He'd rather have real food, the family specialty, regional specialties, and the local produce or proteins, than have you cook as if you're the head chef at Le Bec Fin. He almost certainly doesn't go full-on "chef" at home, at least not most of the time, and if he is in fact a chef, he never cooks that way at home, because he knows a home kitchen won't do that. Fact: even Gordon Ramsey likes beans on toast after work, not beef Wellington.

When I took my first trip to England, my primary food goal was to meet fish and chips from a proper shop, and then to drink cider at a proper pub. In Egypt, I drove a hotel restaurant's staff insane - Western tourists were supposed to choose from the Western menu and buffet offerings, not to run to the everyday Egyptian fare they served for locals and themselves. I'd already armed myself, though, with notes about the street food breakfast I wanted to try, and that they were serving themselves, the Egyptian equivalent of a burrito. When I was in Richmond, Virginia years ago, I voluntarily broke every dietary principle I held dear, just to try one bite of a locAl Smithfield ham. I haven't done that since, but there hasn't been any other time I had to know, on pain of death, what the culinary fuss was over something I absolutely didn't eat. It's only food "wannabees" who believe that the average person should put an entire Spago menu on their table. People who really care want to experience what's on offer where they are. I've learned some of my best tricks at other people's tables.

A real "foodie," if that's what Lenny says he is, wants authentic food experiences, not four-star restaurant cooking from your kitchen. If you cook, you can do that. Don't be scared of the Lennies of the world; pull out your mother's recipes or the humane society's fundraising cookbook, and start cooking. If it's fresh, and if it's real, that's what he's looking for.

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