Food doesn't have to be fancy to be good

Dear Hipster:

I consider myself a well-above-average cook. I enjoy entertaining and hosting dinners. One particular couple, whom I love, have come over for a few get-togethers in the past, but I stopped inviting them because they are super picky eaters who don’t like anything “fancy.” They won’t even eat fish, let alone my sous vide spiny lobster “thermidor,” which is a total panty-dropper, believe you me! They’ve dropped hints recently that they feel left out, but I don’t want them to come and not enjoy the fruits of my labors. I also don’t want to dumb my cooking down just because somebody doesn’t like “fancy” food.

— M.

Hey, M., it’s your party and you can cry/stand at the door and bar entrance to whomever you please if you want to. Nevertheless, if there’s one thing hipster food trends have taught us, it’s that food doesn’t have to be “fancy” to be good. Hipsters have been charging premium amounts for tarted-up bar food and cleverly augmented renditions of American classics, and so can you. If you can’t pull out all your chefly tricks and produce a dry-aged roast beef with mashed potatoes and gravy that takes you a week to produce and would trick even the most unadventurous palate into eating fine food, well, you have no right to that “well-above-average” designation.