À table, garcons and filles!
Last time you saw silver napkin rings on place settings?
The night before my presentation, I had a friend over to help me prepare. I had been running around all day and no time to prepare anything substantial, so I had to make do with what I had in the fridge. This is what happened: Pate, guacamole, cherry tomatoes, laughing cow cheese, potato chips, and cucumbers. Nothing went with anything, but everything ended up fine.
I have to move out of my apartment in less than 6 weeks, so I’ve been trying to cram in as many dinner parties as possible. It’s a lovely scene every time, except for the part where we all have to sit on the floor.
A friend came to Korea and brought me Trader Joe’s goodness. Guacamole and taco party ensued.
On this exact day last year, I invited two people dear to my heart to lunch. We started with an assortment of caviars, foie gras, and terrine. Then we had this, our main course. Confit de canard and CD’s famous potatoes. It was accompanied and followed by copious servings of wine, cheese, cake, and laziness. We stretched our lunch as far as it could go, finally letting it loose when the skies turned dark.
And for dessert?
Coconut pineapple cake, expertly baked by MP. Served with green tea. Eaten with love
When I was in Paris this February, I finally, finally made reservations early enough to make it to one of Jim Hayne’s Sunday night dinner parties. After years of reading about them, I was beyond excited to go, even though it was Feb 14 and my last night in Paris with the lover.
I was expecting lots of people, good food, and magical conversation.
There were indeed a lot of people. So many, in fact, that once you were lodged next to the doorway or sitting on the armrest of a couch, you were pretty much stuck there until you decided to brave the thick crowd of bodies smushed up against each other.
The food was truly delicious. The meal was some kind of vegetable veloute, salad, Moroccan chicken baked in filo-dough, and berries and cream. Sadly, we had just come from an intense afternoon of fabulous eating at Chez Casimir, and my stomach was on the brink of ripping open (TMI, sorry). It didn’t stop me from enjoying TASTING all the food, but I couldn’t finish anything.
As for the magical conversation that I expected, it was somewhat less than that. Oh, it was fine, and people were nice, but no soul-connecting conversations about traveling or Paris or love or anything beyond asking and answering “have you been here before?” “how did you hear about it?” “what are you doing in paris?” “how long are you in paris?” “what do you do?”
Of course, after 25 years, I guess it was too silly of me to assume that the dinner party would still have retained the same organic feel that I’ve so longingly read about. Our host Jim Haynes looked tired by the end of the night. He looked tired of people asking him for pictures, though he said yes each time very graciously.
So anyway, the people in this photo were one of the couples who I was seated next to for a long period during that night. They came from London just for V-day weekend but had forgotten their camera! The lady looked so despondent as she told me this that I offered to take a photo for them and email it.
Guess what. I lost their email address. Quite frankly I don’t even remember their names, nor do i remember the name of the man’s band. I can’t imagine that this will ever make it back to them, but I guess I’ll put it out there.
And duh, the gentleman on the right is the inimitable Jim Haynes.
