No, Nigella – dinner parties are great. Deliveroo just doesn’t cut it | Rachel Cooke

Having friends over to eat is part of who we are, with set-piece encounters feeding into plays, films and books. Talk of their demise is premature

I know. The dinner party is always over, or about to be so. In my long(ish) life, the announcement of its passing has been made several times, and on each occasion it has somehow risen from its bed like Lazarus, and tottered once more into the kitchen, wooden spoon in hand.

Still, I'm minded now to regard the situation as extremely serious: the patient, it would seem, really is in intensive care, and may not live to see another lasagne, nor even a small bowl of olives. Nigella Lawson, who is effectively the Mother of the Nation these days, says she's out of the habit of throwing them - and if she is, so must we be. For where Nigella treads, we follow, breathing deeply the better to pick up the heady scent of cardamom.