(DINNER) Party like it's 2019

Having friends over for a meal is a rite of passage, says Lynn Enright. But how do you get it right in the Instagram age?

- Lynn Enright

Millennials are bad, lazy cooks. That’s not my opinion; it’s what various surveys tell us. Last year, a self-reported US study found that millennials were the ‘worst cooks of any generation’, while a UK research revealed that there has been a 54 percent decrease in home cooking over the past 30 years. Relying on cheap, casual restaurants and Deliveroo, those born between 1981 and 1997 are eating out and ordering in far more than those who came before them. But when millennials can be bothered to prepare a home-made evening meal, they are more likely to share it with others. Even as home cooking has declined, there has been a 9.5 percent increase since 2012 in consumers cooking to entertain friends. So, while millennials are much less inclined than their parents were to sit down to a home-cooked meal of meat and two vegetable options on a random Tuesday evening, they are inviting friends to join them for dinner more frequently.