Dinner Parties

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Occasionally somebody I know - often Isabel - will say hey, we ought to have a dinner party. It then almost always doesn't happen, but anyway, dinner parties: Plato-style classic or Ayckbournian dud?

― Tom, Thursday, 6 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Classic in my limited experience, I have only been to ones where it's been a few people not long tables full and so we all know all the foibles of each other. I think where they become dicey is where you invite people who don't know each other, then you never know what can happen, I mean it could all be fantastic but then after hearing some friend's experiences they can descend into the Ayckbournian abyss of arguement and retribution.

Besides, I usually cook anyway so I can escape to the kitchen if it's getting rubbish.

Also classic as they let me do more show-off cooking rather than normal day-to day stuff

― cabbage, Thursday, 6 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

That reminds me - I thought you were coming round and cooking for me and Lucy.

I love dinner parties, as long as they don't involve Plato.

― Nick, Thursday, 6 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

even plato dinner?

― mark s, Thursday, 6 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Dud if I am cooking as I have to pay for everyone else's dinner AND cook it AND wash up after it. Why not go to a restaurant where we all pay and someone else cooks and washes up? And if I am cooking I cannot be mingling, it is definitely not the done thing to have one's guests in the kitchen (as it were). Fairly classic if someone else is cooking but then there is the pressure to invite them back. What a pain.

― Emma, Thursday, 6 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Mark you should be tortured for that joke. As for the topic, myself and my 18 year old friends don't often have dinner parties amazingly.

― Ronan, Thursday, 6 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Classic. Even when you drink 2 bottles red wine, babble incoherently and make a pass at the other guests wife. (Not that I've ever done that, oh no...)

― Billy Dods, Thursday, 6 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Ronan, I'm not sure even us old folks often have dinner parties amazingly. I mean we try our best and everything, but they are hard to excel at.

I went to quite a lot of dinner parties when I was 18, but then I was a ponce.

― Nick, Thursday, 6 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

At the (ahem) tender age of 28 I think I've been to 2 in the last year, usually it goes if you cook you definitely don't wash up (I love that rule :-) and at the past couple I haven't paid for the food either, just get a kitty and any left over is spent on booze. Of course this only works if there's lots of you.

Yes Nick, I am supposed to be doing that, we'll have to sort it out upon her return.

― cabbage, Thursday, 6 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Yeah Nick I didn't expect you all morphed unexpectedly into oldies at 25. But dinner parties? at 18? Ponce? Clearly.

― Ronan, Thursday, 6 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Much better than "dinner parties" are CHEESE AND WINE parties. Because all they involve is cheese and wine. Get down to the basic elements sez I. Easy to prepare and great fun to consume. Anything else is then an ADDED BONUS.

A dinner party is fun if there are only a few of you (4 max) and you all help to cook something and muck about the kitchen. Also there is no blame if what results ends up as DISASTER - a scenario in which I am vvv familiar.

― Sarah, Thursday, 6 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

If theres just a few of you isn't it just dinner?

― Ronan, Thursday, 6 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

A kitty? I dunno, people round here, if they're not ponces they're hippies.

My mum did a dinner party for me and a bunch of girl friends on my 18th consisting of lasagne, garlic bread, salad, Delia Smith's chocolate truffle torte & copious amounts of wine. Her and my dad went out and returned to find me feeling a trifle unwell while my very responsible mates cleared up around me. I don't seem to have changed much since I was 18 (except my mum doesn't cook for me any more).

― Emma, Thursday, 6 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Nah, 8 max and preferably 6. With 4 (assuming it's two het couples) the blokes end up talking to each other all night which is dud, with 6 you get more mixing.

― Billy Dods, Thursday, 6 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

agreed 6=perfect

and Emma the kitty thing just helps when it comes to affording the lavish spread I put on, I couldn't afford it on my own!

― cabbage, Thursday, 6 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

God I remember my 18th, it must have been way back in.......March. My parents just bought me and my mates loads of beer. Can't complain really.

― Ronan, Thursday, 6 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Starry is correct. Only problem with cheese and wine parties is they sometimes turn into cheese and any random booze lying round the house/flat/college parties. The last time this happened I attempted to hit one of my best friends, abused a cooker, had a screaming row with my girlfriend, vomited cheese all over another of my friends shoes and finished the evening by swallow diving down a flat of stairs, giving myself concussion in the process.

― Richard Tunnicliffe, Thursday, 6 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

But does this not cause troubles akin to students going out for a meal i.e. 'but I deliberately only had 2 glasses of wine as I'm skint!' 'well I didn't finish my starter' 'and I only had 2 spoons of caviar, he had 3' etc.? Or maybe your friends are more mature....

― Emma, Thursday, 6 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Those problems are nothing compared to "I don't like anything on any menu anywhere", which I have encountered on the few occasions I tried to go out for dinner with matea.

― Ronan, Thursday, 6 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Matea, in case anyone wondered.

― mark s, Thursday, 6 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Quite the dreamboat I think you'll find.

― Ronan, Thursday, 6 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I went to a dinner party with 48 people once. Living hell. Didn't know any of them and I felt like Hugh Bloody Grant. It was in America and I was the only British person there. Shudder.

― Paul Strange, Thursday, 6 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

paul that was a banquet surely

― mark s, Thursday, 6 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Sarah speaks wisdom, and the problem with you, Mr. Tunnicliffe, is that you were dealing with wastrels and ne'er-do-wells at your party. You can't have *them* around. ;-)

Mostly my Circle o' Friends eats out. When we get together for food, though, it's not so much a dinner party as, well, a get-together with food. Random snacking in the kitchen, stuff on the grill, all of us piled in a room watching videos or exchanging thoughts on Life and Stuff while never actually sitting at a table. Who needs it?

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 6 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

What's the difference between a dinner party and having a few people round for dinner?

― DV, Thursday, 6 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The hats.

― Dan Perry, Thursday, 6 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

What's the difference between a party and having a few people round?

― Graham, Thursday, 6 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

charades: classic or dud?

― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 6 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

My dinner parties rock: cheap and disposable food, wine in big bottles, a table outside in the garden, lots of candles and a carefully balanced guest list where everyone invited except me knows about two thirds of the people there. Kiss of death: entrenched couples. Which is why I don't have as many dinner parties as I used to.

The greatest achievement to have arisen out of a dinner party I hosted was the hatching of a mutant hybrid accent - Irish-Indian.

― Tim, Friday, 7 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

one year passes...

i still haven't been to a dinner party, but i love the idea of one where, playing quietly in the background is some gabba, and everyone just makes polite conversation and carries on like it was kenny g or something. i then also like the idea of the gabba being on at full earshattering volume, and everyone carrying on as normal, but whenever they speak, having to bellow reallyloudly to make themselves heard

there would be soft lighting, and candles,

― gareth (gareth), Saturday, 21 September 2002 20:02 (twenty-two years ago)

and one of the men would wear a cardigan that was light brown.

― gareth (gareth), Saturday, 21 September 2002 20:08 (twenty-two years ago)

I missed this thread first time round. One of my best friends likes these things. She has a very nice house, with an enormous and expensive dining table (most around it in my experience: 20), and she spends ages cooking - and then makes the mistake of inviting her friends around, which is where it all goes downhill, with everyone wanting to eat at different times and being more interested in some nonsense on TV or playing loud music. She takes it in good spirit, but you can tell it's not what she ideally wants.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 21 September 2002 20:26 (twenty-two years ago)

two years pass...

I'm going to a dinner party tomorrow. Help me pass as normal, just for three hours or so.

― Milo Smiley (nordicskilla), Thursday, 10 March 2005 22:02 (twenty years ago)

Adam, I'd expect you to do just fine at a dinner party!

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Thursday, 10 March 2005 22:11 (twenty years ago)

These people don't drink!

and and and I think we're playing SCRABBLE!

― Milo Smiley (nordicskilla), Thursday, 10 March 2005 22:14 (twenty years ago)

oh God. Yeah, those are my imposed dinner parties, too. Fortunately, my girlfriend also bores easily, and after two or three of these "Come on over, I'll cook for you!" things, she generally ends up not liking these people anymore.

― sunburned and snowblind (kenan), Thursday, 10 March 2005 22:17 (twenty years ago)

formal dinner parties are awkward. i like the idea of them, but not the reality so much. any party where you can't get up and walk around while you eat/drink is dud.

― lychee mello (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 10 March 2005 22:23 (twenty years ago)

At the one dinner party I was at we had to play scattegories or some silly game like that. I'd like to go to a gareth dinner party though, the gabba would be cool.

― Leon the Fatboy (Ex Leon), Thursday, 10 March 2005 22:24 (twenty years ago)

We get up and walk around and watch movies and stuff, but... well, some people are just dull. And when you serve them pork loin in figs and they pick the figs off, it's like, ok, fine, DON'T eat my food then.

― sunburned and snowblind (kenan), Thursday, 10 March 2005 22:25 (twenty years ago)

Not that I do the cooking, but I sympathize.

― sunburned and snowblind (kenan), Thursday, 10 March 2005 22:25 (twenty years ago)

Actually, I am thinking specifically about two people who are NOT ILXORS, lest anyone get offended.

― sunburned and snowblind (kenan), Thursday, 10 March 2005 22:26 (twenty years ago)

These people don't drink!

Does this mean you will have to abstain?

Kenan, have pity on them. They are fools.

― Michael White (Hereward), Thursday, 10 March 2005 22:26 (twenty years ago)

And when you serve them pork loin in figs and they pick the figs off, it's like, ok, fine, DON'T eat my food then.

or they pour salt and ketchup all over the dish you've painstakingly prepared (and it ain't french fries).

― lychee mello (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 10 March 2005 22:28 (twenty years ago)

These people don't drink!

GET ONE FLASK

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Thursday, 10 March 2005 22:34 (twenty years ago)

Good advice, good advice.

― Leon the Fatboy (Ex Leon), Thursday, 10 March 2005 22:36 (twenty years ago)

This is why I just go with a roast. Its easy to make (bung it in the oven, it cooks itself) and honestly, who doesnt eat roasts?

― Trayce (trayce), Thursday, 10 March 2005 22:37 (twenty years ago)

vegetarians? ;-)

― lychee mello (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 10 March 2005 22:39 (twenty years ago)

TX dinner parties = grill, bucket of longnecks, easy peasy

― Miss Misery (thatgirl), Thursday, 10 March 2005 22:43 (twenty years ago)

This is a Piedmont, Oakland CA dinner party.

― Milo Smiley (nordicskilla), Thursday, 10 March 2005 22:44 (twenty years ago)

http://www.lapsus-gil.de/pix/moon.jpg

― Darius Rucker Lookalike (deangulberry), Thursday, 10 March 2005 22:44 (twenty years ago)

JBR: hehe I knew someone'd say that ;) Roasts even work for vegetarians! Seeing as half my friends are veggie - I roast the vegetables in a seperate tray and make veg gravy, they scarf it all down.

― Trayce (trayce), Thursday, 10 March 2005 22:45 (twenty years ago)

It's a shame that dinner parties are this separate category of event that one must feel nervous about. It's like there's no middle ground between kebabs on the couch vs full-on high-anxiety placemat fests.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Thursday, 10 March 2005 22:49 (twenty years ago)

This is a Piedmont, Oakland CA dinner party.

You can always "go for a walk" and sneak over to Barney's for a burger and a beer. and curly fries.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Thursday, 10 March 2005 22:51 (twenty years ago)

kebabs on the couch

You get kebabs on my couch and there will be blood!

― Michael White (Hereward), Thursday, 10 March 2005 22:54 (twenty years ago)

I have a feeling I might be expected to be some sort of performing eccentric Englishman there for the amusement of others. On the occasions that I have met the hostess before, she has smiled at my every word and action as if they were the performance of some kind of prehistoric bird.

― Milo Smiley (nordicskilla), Thursday, 10 March 2005 22:57 (twenty years ago)

Tell them that "everyone listens to this CD at English dinner parties," then present her with Run the Road and when it starts do a bunch of tough guy poses and maybe some break dancing.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Thursday, 10 March 2005 22:59 (twenty years ago)

I think she likes Frou Frou. Who are Frou Frou?

Apparently she has an Xbox but only has "the personal trainer game".

Which I wouldn't mind playing, catually!

― Milo Smiley (nordicskilla), Thursday, 10 March 2005 23:01 (twenty years ago)

How can you possibly resist the temptation, then, of inventing a whole new jargon of putative 'britishisms' with which to confound and delight them?

x-post

― Michael White (Hereward), Thursday, 10 March 2005 23:01 (twenty years ago)

xpost, I've been thinking about getting a PS2 with Dance Dance Revolution purely for working out.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Thursday, 10 March 2005 23:01 (twenty years ago)

That's what JaXoN's wife does.

― Milo Smiley (nordicskilla), Thursday, 10 March 2005 23:02 (twenty years ago)

"these knockers really pop my wiggly, m'lud, i'm referring of course to these potatoes"

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Thursday, 10 March 2005 23:03 (twenty years ago)

Haha! Thanks, I'll take that one.

― Milo Smiley (nordicskilla), Thursday, 10 March 2005 23:05 (twenty years ago)

I have cooked dinner for various ILXors. They claim to have enjoyed it, but I am sometimes skeptical.

― Ian John50n (orion), Thursday, 10 March 2005 23:07 (twenty years ago)

just talk in cockney slang and don't stop to explain anything.

― lychee mello (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 10 March 2005 23:08 (twenty years ago)

I have cooked dinner for one ILXor. Actually, my wife did. But I provided "entertainment" ( I forced them to watch me play "Make The Moon" on Katamari Damacy!).

― Milo Smiley (nordicskilla), Thursday, 10 March 2005 23:08 (twenty years ago)

i have cooked for two ilxors. perhaps i will bring some baked goods to the ned-fap. what poxy fule doesn't like a baked good?

― lychee mello (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 10 March 2005 23:12 (twenty years ago)

If they exist I don't ever want to meet them.

― Milo Smiley (nordicskilla), Thursday, 10 March 2005 23:14 (twenty years ago)

Mmm baked goods. Now I want pierogi or baked creamed potatos or something.

― Trayce (trayce), Thursday, 10 March 2005 23:16 (twenty years ago)

I made spinach quesadillas for an ilxors. no grill though.

― Miss Misery (thatgirl), Thursday, 10 March 2005 23:25 (twenty years ago)

http://www.bobgruen.com/files/who/files/R.059%20KEITH%20MOON%20MAD%20HATTER%2074.jpg

― Darius Rucker Lookalike (deangulberry), Thursday, 10 March 2005 23:26 (twenty years ago)

I get it, Dean. He's English. He's "eccentric".

― Milo Smiley (nordicskilla), Thursday, 10 March 2005 23:27 (twenty years ago)

But do you really get it? He's looking into OUR SOULS.

― Darius Rucker Lookalike (deangulberry), Thursday, 10 March 2005 23:29 (twenty years ago)

i used to have the biggest crush on Keith Moon

seriously this might've warped my future development

best dinner party i ever had ended in one guest being covered head to toe with wax while another guest blathered on and on and on about how his $25,000 bonus was just NOT GOOD ENOUGH and then we had to get wax boy in the shower.

i haven't held a dinner party in quite a long time because the last one was so surreal, more surreal than the one i just referenced above.

― Allyzay Dallas Multi-Pass (allyzay), Friday, 11 March 2005 01:28 (twenty years ago)

All of mine end up like in Festen. Usually it turns out I've been molested by 70% - 80% of the guests.

― Remy (null) (x Jeremy), Friday, 11 March 2005 01:35 (twenty years ago)

Aim for the 100% next time, you lazy man.

Friends in the area and I get together every month to have a dinner-type thing, but we've never called it a dinner party or anything like that, it's more like "Okay, we're going to get together, everyone will cook or contribute some fabulous food, the conversations will continue from snacking and chatting to sitting around with the formal stuff and chatting and relaxing with coffee and chatting without a break," and we all have a good time and go home stuffed and usually the kids have been watching something on DVD to kill time in the meantime.

This Saturday we're doing this even more informally -- that means taking advantage of the proto-summer weather to enjoy a local park before chowing down on hot dogs and burgers and then watching the English dub of Porco Rosso over popcorn. (The idea of said movie was that of an adult or two as much as it was their kids. I think we are too collectively geek to ever worry about a really formal dinner per se, and that's to the good.)

Oh, and drinking is de rigeuer at these get-togethers. Holding one without tasting Baltic beer or a new vintage of wine or the like would be a sacrilege.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 11 March 2005 01:38 (twenty years ago)

All of mine end up like in Festen. Usually it turns out I've been molested by 70% - 80% of the guests.

ROFFLE

― Mr. Harvey Weinstein (mr harvey weinstein), Friday, 11 March 2005 01:45 (twenty years ago)

i would like to point out that Ian makes fantastic quesadillas and his black beans are excellent.

― Allyzay Dallas Multi-Pass (allyzay), Friday, 11 March 2005 01:47 (twenty years ago)

We should have a pot-luck at my shitty apartment!

― Remy (null) (x Jeremy), Friday, 11 March 2005 02:09 (twenty years ago)

(Also: I think pot lucks are SOOOOO cool.)

― Remy (null) (x Jeremy), Friday, 11 March 2005 02:09 (twenty years ago)

I'm all for that! Potluck/bad movie FAP?

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 11 March 2005 02:17 (twenty years ago)

yeah, sometime in April!

― Remy (null) (x Jeremy), Friday, 11 March 2005 02:20 (twenty years ago)

Hmmm...let's try for the weekend before Coachella. Most every other weekend is already spoken for!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 11 March 2005 02:21 (twenty years ago)

OMG rofflicious

― Allyzay Dallas Multi-Pass (allyzay), Friday, 11 March 2005 02:21 (twenty years ago)

You know my movie... VENOM, but let's make sure to schedule quickly so J4y doesn't get to pick one of the others.

― Remy (null) (x Jeremy), Friday, 11 March 2005 02:22 (twenty years ago)

I don't think you're ready for this queso, Ally.

Remy, most wise. I contribute Vampire on Bikini Beach, so that's three hours spoken for. Start a thread or something.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 11 March 2005 02:23 (twenty years ago)

I AM DYING

― Allyzay Dallas Multi-Pass (allyzay), Friday, 11 March 2005 02:24 (twenty years ago)

I have been to a great number of ok-to-good dinner parties in the past 3 years.

― BARMS, Friday, 11 March 2005 12:21 (twenty years ago)

You get kebabs on my couch and there will be blood!

Just a regular dinner party round Gear!'s.

― Markelby (Mark C), Friday, 11 March 2005 12:24 (twenty years ago)

Best dinner parties I've been to: as my last year of uni was coming to an end, two of my housemates and I stayed on in our house for an extra couple of months beyond the end of our lease for various reasons. Our other housemate Sophie, who'd made our lives vaguely intolerable for the past year, got kicked out on the date her contract expired because our lovely landlady took the same attitude to self-centred, whiny cows as we did. We celebrated Sophie's departure the day she left with an impromptu dinner party - Rachel, one of the girls who stayed on, is the best cook I have ever had the fortune to meet, and she made us her special haloumi, roasted vegetable and couscous delight. I made falafel, and Anwen made devilled eggs. We got insanely drunk and I ended up passed out on the hall floor. We enjoyed ourselves so much that we had one every week for the next month and a half.

― The Lex (The Lex), Friday, 11 March 2005 12:30 (twenty years ago)

Last time I went to a dinner party I ended up taking so much k I awoke next morning in my hosts bed with no idea what the hell had happened.

― The Shame (alix), Friday, 11 March 2005 12:43 (twenty years ago)

I've grown to love dinner parties. Of course, it depends on who they are with. I have a friend who frequently throws dinner parties, and they're fabulous - probably because all of her friends are really interesting and intelligent and creative (except me, natch) so it doesn't matter who you sit next to, you know you'll have some good conversations.

Speaking of which, yikes, it's my turn to host a dinner party soon, I better sort that out.

However, it does very much depend on the company. Dinner parties with Joe's friends could be bloody TORTURE.

― Masonic Cathedral (kate), Friday, 11 March 2005 12:47 (twenty years ago)

Was there a bit too much artistic sound going on?

― caitlin (caitlin), Friday, 11 March 2005 12:53 (twenty years ago)

Depended. With the artwankers, there was just WAAAAAAYYYYY TOOOOO MUCH utter pretentious nonsense going around. Though we tended not to go to dinners with them. Phew.

But much, much worse was the friends he sort of kept contact with from college days. He at least had "old times" to discuss with them. I had nothing in common with them and could barely keep myself awake.

― Masonic Cathedral (kate), Friday, 11 March 2005 12:55 (twenty years ago)

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