Self-Taught Lesson #14: So, how do you get this thing (a dinner party) started?

After I saw my parents last weekend, and retrieved bags of sweaters, t-shirts, a citrus slicer, a water bottle, and a library book I left behind in December in a last-minute dash, I also gained a new cookbook. Above the library book (a rented 2019 edition of Joy of Cooking that I have held for too long) was a sun-yellowed 1962 edition with my grandma’s handwriting on a Post-It on the inside sleeve.

This would be the perfect reference book for entertaining, I thought. This was a primary document ...