ST. LOUIS -- A colleague is holding a small dinner party for our department to honor one of our number who is retiring.

We are sorry to be losing our irreplaceable co-worker and friend, of course, but we are also excited by the prospect of the party. The hostess is known to be an excellent cook, and I have it on good authority that dessert will be either a carrot cake or a lemon mascarpone cake, depending on the entrée.

We are all excited, I should say, but there is a problem. One of the guests, for all of her charms, is a vegetarian.

We all love and cherish this particular vegetarian, but her dietary restrictions do make planning a dinner party a bit difficult. I understand the situation, because I'm having just such a party.

It's a small affair, just two other couples. One of the guys is smart and funny and interesting and well-read, and his political views happen to align with my own. But he is a vegetarian, and that adds a certain level of complexity to our plans for dinner.

The other guy, incidentally, is smart and funny and interesting and well-read, too, but his political views happen to be in opposition to mine. But at least he eats meat, which makes dinner plans easier.

We have an unwritten rule: We don't talk about politics. It makes our time together much more pleasant.

The last time we hosted a dinner for a pack of carnivores and a single vegetarian, we hit upon a menu that I personally think was kind of genius. We made my wife's Italian mother's stuffed shells.

Typically, the dish is made with a slow-cooked tomato sauce that is flavored with a big hunk of pot roast, which is removed from the sauce and served sliced on the side. We made it that way for the carnivores. For the vegetarian, we served the same stuffed shells but made a quick-cooking, meatless sauce that is nice and bright and goes almost as well with them as the slow-cooked sauce with the meat.

But stuffed shells is our standard, go-to dish, and I don't want to be the sort of person who always makes the same thing, unless we are talking about carrot cake or lemon mascarpone cake.

So I'm still contemplating the menu for dinner. I'm going over ideas for dishes that can be made simultaneously with and without meat. Maybe I'll make a couple of pizzas. Everybody loves pizza.

Meanwhile, anticipation is growing for the party in honor of our departing friend. But there is one problem, other than the vegetarian thing: The hostess lives in the suburbs.

Many of the rest of us live in the city, including the guest of honor. As far as we know, anything west of I-270 is in Kansas, or perhaps Colorado.

"Pack your water and snacks to make the long journey," wrote the hostess.

"What is the weather like there?" asked a former colleague.

"Pack your animal skins, too. Farmers say it's going to be an early winter and a lean harvest," wrote the hostess.

"I will be there, assuming the State Department can expedite my passport renewal," said a colleague.

The guy who asked about the weather texted a scene of covered wagons crossing the plains.

A different former colleague wondered if we would die of dysentery on the way out (that was in response to the covered wagons) and expressed the hope that there would be a giant roadside attraction that we could stop at along the way.

Then the hostess sweetened the pot by suggesting that I might be bringing a carrot cake.

"OK, that's worth the drive," said one of the others.

The hostess was having none of it: "What about the dinner I was going to make????" she wrote.

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