Who’s Coming to Dinner?

[Suzanne F]

Diamond Jim Brady and Lillian Russell

Colette

Calvin Trillin (not sure about him, though; he looks as though he doesn't eat as much as you'd imagine from his writing.)

In this company, I could just sit back and watch people enjoy eating.

[Mabelline]

Seeing it's Saturday night, I'm thinking of a small dinner party with

Moses

Christoper Walken

Madame de Pompadour

Saladin

[Cynthia G]

Oooo! Project I wanna come to your dinner party!

[monkeymay]

four people no longer 'with us' at a dinner party?

Gabrielle 'Coco' Chanel

Che Guevara

Florence Ballard (of the Supremes)

Kevyn Aucoin

i have no idea what they would eat...

Ohhh, I knew Kevyn and used to cook for him at when i worked at Smashbox Studios.

He was lovely, sweet and charming with a good appetite. I was so sorry when he passed.

A good dinner guest choice indeed!

[arjay]

Anna Kournikova and three of her sisters.

[jabolster]

Not all mine are dead but....

Raymond Carver, Tom Waits, Albert Einstein and Leonardo Da Vinci.

But my question to all of you is what would you serve your fab four?

[Comfort Me]

Julia Child, Diana, Princess of Wales, Golde Meir, and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.

And if I got to have a second seating, it would be Alice Paul, Alice Roosevelt Longworth, Oscar Wilde, and Katherine Graham.

[ms. victoria]

On many themes: for intellectual stimulus: Mark Twain, Michele Foucault, Gertrude Stein and Jesus. For sexy and smart: Gabriel Byrne, Billy Bragg, Alton Brown and Alan Rickman. For an interesting girls' night out: Emma Thompson, Hilary Clinton, Nigella Lawson, and Dolly Parton.

[rich]

Abraham Lincoln, Jerry Orbach, Catherine the Great and Penny Tweedy (Secretariat's owner).

[NeroW]

William Jefferson Clinton

Yeah. He's cute.

EYE CANDY DINNER:

David Bowie

Bruce Lee

Jude Law

Sting Sumner

SERIOUS DISCUSSION DINNER:

David Byrne

Charles Darwin

C.S. Lewis

Thomas Merton

SIT-AROUND-AT-THE-TABLE-DRINKING-WHISKY-AFTER-DINNER-DINNER

Clint Eastwood

Frank Zappa

Bob Dylan

Julia Child (does she drink whisky?)

[ingridsf]

Zero Mostel, Wanda Sykes, Mel Brooks, Tom Waits

[GordonCooks]

Robert Parker, Thomas Keller, Charlie Trotter, Helen Turley

You'll eat and drink quite well with this group at the table. I could arm-wrestle everyone for the check after.

[Tydel]

Andre Tanneberger,

Robert the Bruce XVII,

Ewan McGregor,

Logan Foster.

Comedy option:

Nietzsche,

Confucious,

Kevin Sorbo,

Lucy Lawless.

[JMayer]

Bob Dylan

Auguste Escoffier

William Shakespeare

and last but not least......

Al Pacino

if the dinner were a flop old AL could entertain us by reciting a Shakespearean Sonnet and Bobby D would probaby bring some good pot!

[Tmnoland]

oooh, The Rat Pack.

Now that'd be fun.

-therese

[balmagowry]

William F. Buckley Jr. and Emma Thompson.

Emma would kill him, and rightfully so. He resembles nothing so much as a human fungus, or the offspring of the Elephant Man, or a reptile with pink skin. I can't believe for an instant she would enjoy a dinner with him.

Hard to imagine that anyone would; at table he is rude, boorish, self-important, arrogant, condescending, loudly and insistently ignorant about food and wine - doesn't even know which fork to use. Goes out of his way to generate maximum inconvenience for everyone around him - delays courses, argues with arrangements, blocks doorways (while conversing on cell phone in audible if incoherent Spanish) - anything to draw attention to himself. Treats his hostess like the hired help and his fellow-guests like pathetic wannabes. At a dinner in honor of someone else whom he professes to admire, takes it upon himself to make an Official Toast, which function he then proceeds to execute by making long rambling self-congratulatory speech all about how wonderful Mr. W.F. Buckley is, just for being Mr. W.F. Buckley. OK, so the guy knows from sailing - maybe he'd be a little less insufferable if he didn't think he had a monopoly on that knowledge. It's an embarrassment to be in the same room with him. An embarrassment of which he himself is happily unaware, since as far as he is concerned no one else ever is in the same room with him.

Oh gosh, I wouldn't want to give the impression that I don't like him. But... well, there it is - I don't. Not enough to put him on a guest list of my own choosing. Call me peculiar - but I kinda like people with manners and taste and a sense of their surroundings.

Like, for instance, these:

My grandfather. Nancy Mitford. Osbert Sitwell. The Marquis de Cussy. Now there's a dinner party.

Another table, another night, this time all foody and French-accented. I was torn between Grimod and Brillat-Savarin, but I think B-S wins for congeniality's sake, as long as we can have Grimod to provide the entertainment. Wouldn't invite B-S without his pretty cousin Mme. R****, so that leaves two places. Hmmmm. Dumas, definitely. And either Julia Child or Lady Morgan.

Hang on a minute, this game is addictive - I want another table, please. Trollope. Richardson. Mrs. Gaskell. Ouida.

Damn - that leaves me with no place to seat Elizabeth Zimmermann. Wonder how she'd get along with George Herriman and Milt Gross and... and... Alan Sherman?

It'd be worth a try.

[John Whiting]

I'd love to host a dinner party consisting of Norman Mailer, Jessica Mitford, Studs Turkel and Charles Laughton. Face-to-face, they are/were four of the most delightful and considerate people I've ever known. Oh, and Jesus Christ.

[marlena spieler]

Seeing it's Saturday night, I'm thinking of a small dinner party with

Moses

Christoper Walken

Madame de Pompadour

Saladin

Wow, Mabelline, if thats for saturday night dinner, who are you having for sunday or midweek?

and you'll have to feed moses lots of wine, as i have heard he stutters a bit and perhaps the wine will relax him enough.............

ps what are you serving?

[bleudauvergne]

Although I prefer to invite 8 or more, limited to 4, I would invite François Rabelais, Dave Brubeck, Gottlob Frege, and Confuscious.

[ellencho]

I must be such a sentimental weenie because everyone's listing all these famous people. I'd want to have dinner with my four grandparents. Two of whom are deceased, and two who are alive, and one who I never had a chance to meet. We'd have Korean food and not have to worry about both my grandma's diabetes.

[McDuff]

Hard to imagine that anyone would; at table he is rude, boorish, self-important, arrogant, condescending, loudly and insistently ignorant about food and wine - doesn't even know which fork to use. Goes out of his way to generate maximum inconvenience for everyone around him - delays courses, argues with arrangements, blocks doorways (while conversing on cell phone in audible if incoherent Spanish) - anything to draw attention to himself. Treats his hostess like the hired help and his fellow-guests like pathetic wannabes. At a dinner in honor of someone else whom he professes to admire, takes it upon himself to make an Official Toast, which function he then proceeds to execute by making long rambling self-congratulatory speech all about how wonderful Mr. W.F. Buckley is, just for being Mr. W.F. Buckley. OK, so the guy knows from sailing - maybe he'd be a little less insufferable if he didn't think he had a monopoly on that knowledge. It's an embarrassment to be in the same room with him. An embarrassment of which he himself is happily unaware, since as far as he is concerned no one else ever is in the same room with him.

I've never met the guy, as I'm sure most of us have never met the folks we're writing about here. If he's that much of a doofus, then why bother with him? In the best of all possible worlds, our guests would be on their best behavior and wouldn't need to be bitch slapped between the entremet and the releve. You just never know about these celebrities..the one time I met Faye Runaway she was so plastered she nearly slid under Table 10.

[balmagowry]

I've never met the guy, as I'm sure most of us have never met the folks we're writing about here. If he's that much of a doofus, then why bother with him? In the best of all possible worlds, our guests would be on their best behavior and wouldn't need to be bitch slapped between the entremet and the releve. You just never know about these celebrities..the one time I met Faye Runaway she was so plastered she nearly slid under Table 10.

Funny you should mention that! It ties in exactly with something I've been thinking about this thread.

And here you all thought we were doing something fun and frivolous... yes, I'm afraid there's actually a seriously "thinky" side to it.

The reasons behind my having been constrained to invite "Wrong Fork" Buckley to dinner are too complicated to go into here (though I do assure you I did so most unwillingly!). But weirdly enough it happens that I know (or, depending on time-frame, my parents and/or grandparents knew) a surprising number of the people at some of these imaginary dinner tables, and thinking about what they were like, and what their hypothetical interactions might have been, set me to wondering about the criteria for invitations.

Here's the question: in putting together these lists (and indeed in conceiving this thread), how much weight should be given to the question of whether or not the guests are likely to be agreeable companions to each other and to the host? And in planning such a table, how clearly should one envision one's own role as host? IOW, how should the result measure up, not only as game/gimmick, but as social occasion?

For instance, take Oscar Wilde and Dorothy Parker, who have appeared a couple of times. Both fascinating and glittering and witty... but both rather intimidating and capable of a certain nastiness. Are we really ready to sit at table with them? I have a feeling I'd rather be in the audience and watch them dine, verbally flaying each other and everyone else present, than risk becoming one of their targets myself! And in some other cases (Hillary Clinton and Eleanor Roosevelt spring to mind) I might be cautiously willing to participate, but as a debate moderator rather than a dinner host. Still another scenario is that of the incongruous mix (NB I am excluding from this category those combinations obviously chosen because their incongruities would be so comical!): people who are individually fascinating but who might have difficulty sustaining a reasonable level of table-talk, or whose pairing might even be actively dangerous - like, say, Henry VIII and Mary Stuart. Obviously a lot of the entries have taken this sort of thing into account, but equally obviously some haven't, perhaps deliberately.

Am I taking this too seriously? Yes, of course I am, but only because I think it's kind of fun. I guess what got me going was in fact the Buckley bit - remembering how extraordinarily unpleasant he was made me suddenly realize that what I really wanted to do with my own fantasy tables was to try to ensure, just as I would with a real dinner party, that no matter how anachronistically improbable they would still be congenial groupings, people who could enjoy being at table together, people whom it would be not only fascinating but really fun to welcome into my dining room. No matter how much best behavior you stipulate, it only takes one nasty or dull or shy or overconfident guest to ruin the evening for the others.

So that's me, idly wondering how much of this sort of thought lies behind the choices people make in this game, and whether - if it didn't when you posted - you'd be likely to change your choices in light of such considerations.

OK, never mind. 'Scuse me, I think I'll go Get A Life now.

[gus_tatory]

four people no longer 'with us' at a dinner party?

Gabrielle 'Coco' Chanel

Che Guevara

Florence Ballard (of the Supremes)

Kevyn Aucoin

i have no idea what they would eat...

Ohhh, I knew Kevyn and used to cook for him at when i worked at Smashbox Studios.

He was lovely, sweet and charming with a good appetite. I was so sorry when he passed.

A good dinner guest choice indeed!

lucky you that you worked with Kevyn Aucoin. he seems like one of those relatively rare people who *was* actually as nice as everyone said they were.

[bleudauvergne]

in putting together these lists (and indeed in conceiving this thread), how much weight should be given to the question of whether or not the guests are likely to be agreeable companions to each other and to the host? And in planning such a table, how clearly should one envision one's own role as host? IOW, how should the result measure up, not only as game/gimmick, but as social occasion?

It comes to mind that in dining with these 4 famous people, we are taking part in an intimate affaire, rather than a dinner where several conversations could be running at once. In my fantasy, these people have received an invitation and accepted it. When I made my choice, I took into consideration that certain of my guests already knew who the others were, as well. It's certainly possible that one of my guests' table manners could overshadow the event, or that I might be considered a lowly kitchen wench. Even if that was so, this would merely contribute to the mix.

Edited March 3, 2004 by bleudauvergne (log)

[John Whiting]

balmagowry raises an interesting question: is one choosing guests that would furnish drama, or who would communicate with each other? I chose four that I knew to be able to listen as well as talk. I left out Larry Adler because, although a very entertaining monologist, he took over any social gathering of which he was a part.

Larry's first autobiography -- the one he wrote himself -- is a great read. The title, It ain't necessarily so, is as good as the other he had considered, Namedrops keep falling on my head.