With a piece of paper, it's easy to wrap up dinner

Have you noticed that lately you can't get through a day without seeing, hearing or even using the adjective “effortless” or its adverbial cousin “effortlessly'”? Your pulled-together look has to make you look effortlessly chic. Your dinner party has to look effortless. You've got to make doing a thousand things a day hyper-competently look effortless. And don't forget looking effortlessly beautiful, effortlessly graceful or effortlessly at ease in any situation that might undo an otherwise normal mortal.

Done. Done. I'm done with it. I've had it with the illusion of effortlessness, and I'm disowning the whole effortless family — but only after I tell you about this dish, which really is effortless. It won't just make you look as if you cook and entertain effortlessly; you actually will. Promise.

The dish is a hobo sack filled with seafood, corn and fresh herbs. In French it would be called “en papillote.” In Italian it's called “al cartoccio.” And in any language it's a nifty way of quickly oven-steaming food so that all the moisture, flavors and fragrances stay in one place and make nice with one another.

It's also fun. I can't explain why, but the first time I cooked something this way, I was just about giddy. Because you can't peek into the packet while it's cooking, the results are almost magical.

You can cook just about anything in a packet, but fish and seafood take to the technique particularly well; they're natural steamers. In this version of packet cooking, my current favorite, you've got corn-off-the-cob, cherry tomatoes, red onion, a lot of herbs, a lick of oil and butter, some lemon juice and a splash of hot sauce, if that's what you like. (I think hot sauce and corn are the proverbial match made in heaven.) Mix everything up, put it in the packet and top with scallops, mussels and shrimp — quick-cooking seafood — and more herbs. Seal the deal, bake for about eight minutes and serve. Effortless.

The joys of cooking this way are many, but the delights of eating this way are even greater: Each person gets a packet and the pleasure of opening it and getting that first whiff of wildly aromatic steam. All those herbs, that fresh-salt scent of seafood and the warm, sunny fragrance of corn, they're all there in that first waft from the packet. If you've never cooked this way, or if you've never eaten something cooked like this, you're in for a treat.