It was supposed to be a simple Sunday supper, nothing much. “Come on over around 7, no 6:30,” I told my sister Lisa nonchalantly.

But you see, I have been trying to win my next-oldest-to-me-but-still-younger sister’s heart since she entered high school, and got too cool for me. And she was bringing a new yet serious-sounding Boyfriend, who worked at her hand doctor’s office (in our family, most accidents are kitchen-related, and Lisa had damaged a finger a year or so back when she was concocting an apres-bar snack, some sort of deconstructed toad-in-the-hole).

Lisa recently moved to go to school in nearby Greensboro, so she came over on Sunday, and poor girl, I don’t believe we finished eating until 9:30. We - well, Kelly, Lisa and the Boyfriend - nibbled on olives and crostini capped with garlic, rosemary and mashed cannelli beans, or cremini and shitake mushrooms sauteed with sage. I was frantically sauteing, chopping, deglazing, etc., etc. all the while trying not to get too giggly on the emptying 1.5 liter bottle of nothing-fancy Shiraz and unveil all our family gossip in one go to the newcomer.

I talked too much. I asked too many questions. I got distracted, and I was way behind.

Finally - 8? - we worked our way through a platter of chicken and parsnips braised in hard cider, then a red cabbage and fennel salad, the vegetables sliced almost translucently thin, then delicately dressed with hazelnut oil, sea salt, pepper and thick peels of Parmigiano Reggiano.

Woah. Then, dessert. It was really, truly 9 p.m.

Sometimes simple is best - particularly after a meal that goes on for hours and centers around chicken, no matter how redemeaningly free-range and organic, sauteed in thick market-cut bacon (did I leave that part out earlier?).

Enter, amaretti.

These cookies don’t look like much, no?

Listen: When you are tempted to go all out for a rib-sticking dinner, do it, but for the grand finale, whip these babies out. Light, crispy and chewy, they are intensely almond on top of almond because two of their four ingredients are almond-related. More importantly, they are drop-dead easy and won’t leave you walking away from the table feeling heavy and exhausted. Amaretti are irresistible on their own, but even better with a dish of vanilla bean affogato. This is how you treat family.

Almond Macaroons, or Amaretti, adapted from Patricia Wells’ Trattoria

Patricia Wells is known more for her Francophile’s take on bistros and Paris. However, it’s her cookbook of small, family restaurant dishes from Italy that gets a lot of use in our kitchen, chock full of comforting and deceptively simple recipes, all more than equal the sum of their short ingredient lists.

Bake them on parchment paper, and really watch them in the oven. They will only need 10, maybe 12 minutes.

3/4 cup of blanched almonds, ground in a food processor to a fine powder
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup egg whites, about two, at room temperature
1/2 teaspoon pure almond extract

Yield: about 36 cookies

Preheat the oven to 350. Line three baking sheets with parchment paper.

Stir together the almonds and sugar in a large bowl.

In another bowl, whisk the egg whites and almond extract until the egg whites form soft peaks. Add the egg whites to the almond and sugar mixture until just combined (mix gently with a spatula). The batter will be airy, soft and sticky.

Using a teaspoon, drop about 1/2 a teaspoon of batter on the baking sheets, spacing each cookie slightly apart to make about 12 cookies per sheet. The cookies that make it into the oven right away will likely be puffier and chewier than flatter, crunchier ones made from batter that sits out longer - both are equally good.

Bake in the center oven rack and bake until slightly browned around the edges. Slide the parchment paper with the cookie on it onto a cookie rack to cool, then transfer from the paper after about five minutes.

The cookies can be stored in an airtight box in a cool, dry place for about 10 days.