For better or worse, our non-adjustable glass topped dining table is built for six. Eight can squeeze in and play kneesey, but after that it’s buffet style and sit wherever you can. I’m not alone in my hatred for juggling beef stroganoff, Caesar salad, French bread and a glass of wine on my lap. The result is preordained and the only question is whether the mess will end up on my shirt, my pants or the rug. If it’s a tile floor you luck out-easier to clean up and still act sophisticated.

In some ways the “pay-back-everyone-you-owe” cocktail party is the easiest of the lot. It’s finger food and enough people so that everyone can find someone to talk with or a corner to crash in.

The real problem is in the smaller gatherings. Actually there are two problems-what to serve and whom to invite. Since I do the cooking, I usually plan the menu but Howard’s input is invaluable because I tend to want to try the six dozen recipes that I’ve never tried at every event. I refuse to try them out on just the two of us because, if the creation fails, we’re going to have to eat the mess. They’re still starving in Armenia and I refuse to toss food out just because it’s a culinary disaster. Furthermore, the FedEx charges to Armenia are really prohibitive, particularly if you ship on ice.

Who to invite is the really big problem and Howard and I usually come from polar opposites on this one. Howard tries for the perfect mix of guests to guarantee that the quiet one will be balanced by the blabbermouth, the serious one will be balanced by the scatter brain, and that no invitee is the immediate ex, or even distant ex, of someone now recoupled. My approach to invitations is more laissez faire. Invite whom you want and let them work out the seating (and speaking) arrangements themselves.

Usually my system works, but after a few uncomfortable evenings, I defer to Howard’s knowledge of the intricacies of the social/sexual scene and who’s with whom, and why. I remember a small dinner party, just five of us, when a semi-politically incorrect comment precipitated an explosion from one of our guests and four of us sat there with jaw on floor.

On another occasion a friend excused himself and left the table-and the apartment-over an imagined slight. So if Howard does the inviting, and chaos prevails, all I have to do is worry about the menu.

I’m trying to develop a code system so that in our personal phone book we can code friends as to their dinner party potential. Maybe a system with: S = snorer, Sc = scintillating, Si = single, Si/lo = single and looking, J = joker, Kh = kitchen helper, E = exploder, Ex = ex (of someone).

Of course, rules for combining guests are the key essential:

Never have more than one snorer per party. With two snorers soon everyone will be snoring.

Never have more than one scintillator per party. Scintillators usually tolerate competition for center stage poorly and inevitably you’ll end up with an SuSc, a sulking scintillator.

For exploders you make a reservation and take them out singly. It’s just damage control.

Don’t invite a Si/lo unless there’s someone else invited who’s single and looking-or a bona fide yenta.

Select jokers carefully. They convert to exploders easily.

Only invite one kitchen helper per party unless you have a large kitchen. When I’m cooking, the best help you can give me is to stay out of my way and out of my kitchen. I want no observers when I pick the steak off the floor, rinse the cat hair with more “au juice,” hum another verse of Nobody Knows The Trouble I’ve Seen and smile as I enter the dining room.