My friend Diana tells me I have an obligation to share the remedy for a dilemma that has long confounded hosts.

“How do you make five dozen deviled eggs without going out of your mind?” she asks.

She is referring to the dishes I made for a holiday gathering, which included two rib roasts, a turkey, a ham, five pounds of brussels sprouts with figs, five pounds of shrimp,  roasted red peppers, other assorted goodies and 120 deviled egg halves.

Truly, it’s not a chore. I enjoy cooking for friends and making the food myself shook loose enough cash to hire a server.

Still, Diana makes a good point. Deviled eggs can be devilishly labor intensive.

So here’s my secret: Binge watch Britcoms while you do the work and the time will fly. Also, so be sure to make the eggs the day before the party, before your schedule gets truly crushed.

I barreled through a season of the BBC series Detectorists on Netflix, a hilarious romp about two eccentrics armed with metal detectors who seek a king’s fortune in the remote English countryside.

Here’s the recipe:

Turn on Episode One.

Put 60 eggs in three large pots (that’s 20 in each pot, you math wiz you)

Add enough water to cover the eggs by about an inch. As soon as the water starts to boil, turn off the heat, cover and let sit for 13 minutes exactly. (I saw chef Anne Burrell do this on the Food Channel. Because there are lots of eggs, I give them 15 minutes and they are perfect.)

Put on Episode Two:

Peel eggs under running water. (Pour  glass of wine.)

Put on Episode Three:

Keep peeling eggs. (Pour another glass of wine.)

Put on Episode Four:

Slice all the eggs in half. Scoop out the yolks. Add 2 1/2 cups of mayonnaise, 2/3 cup Dijon mustard, and all the pickle relish you can scrape out of the jar. Pour in a little white vinegar. Glug. Glug.

Put on Episode Five:

With a fork, mash up all the ingredients. Do a thorough job so the ingredients are dispersed evenly throughout the yolks.

Put on Episode Six:

Keep mashing. When you have the consistency just right, take an ice tea spoon and start mounding the filling into the halved eggs. (My friend Vince tells me it’s lots easier to pack the filling in a plastic storage bag, snip the corner and pipe it out. I will try that next time.)

Sprinkle on paprika. Use the expensive smoked variety. It’s worth it.

Season One of Detectorists is complete. And so are the eggs.

One last tip for home entertainers: Make sure you station all the booze at the bar before the festivities get underway. I tore through hostess gifts in search of red wine when I thought the supply was running dry. The next day I discovered an errant case of merlot, neatly tucked in the garage.