I just read Dinner Date (I'm assuming that's all of it?) and, while this may be by accident, noticed that it was just like the first few pages of a novel I'd read recently. Although that wasn't a dinner date but a telepathic dream that a person on earth was having of what had happened to the crew of our first starship. I think the rest of the novel was about preparing for the menace as the food was tracked back to its source (earth). Wish I could remember the title or author offhand.