Now that my daughters have "places of their own" (OK, I'm paying for it, but it's not a dorm room any longer) they are really enjoying cooking for their friends. Rachel told me about an upcoming dinner she was planning and asked me how she should prepare the asparagus.

"Well," I said, "When you are going to have so many other dishes you are trying to finish at the last moment and you're cooking for a crowd, you can't go wrong with Julie's Best Baked Asparagus.

"Yes!" she exclaimed. "That's the great asparagus recipe from when I was little, the one we used to have all the time, right? Can you send it over, Mom?"

Even though it appears in two of our books, Desperation Dinners to serve 4 and Desperation Entertaining to serve 8, I told her I'd post it on the site as soon as possible. She'd rather cook from her computer than a book, anyway.

So here's an old-time favorite that we first printed in the Desperation Dinners column, then variations appeared in our first two books. It's a worthy one to print again here. Really, when you are cooking for a crowd, it's the perfect way to cook 2 pounds of asparagus at the same time and it come out perfect when you're ready to serve. Enjoy! And Rachel, you'll have to let us know how the dinner party goes....