First, no dinner party is a real party. The word
"party" implies fun, carefree antics, abandon and lots of merriment.
None of that is true of a sit-down dinner party which is a sober, managed, time-sensitive
event. Remember what F. Scott
Fitzgerald said of just such a gathering:
"The evening progressed from phase to phase with the sheer nervous
dread of the moment itself."
Uh. Huh.
1. Do not under
any circumstances arrive early. Sit out on the sidewalk if you must. Most
hostesses need every single minute to prepare for what is basically a staged
and artificial situation: a formal
dinner party. By formal I do not
mean tuxedo formal. I mean a
situation where all the parties will check their bad habits, disappointments
and marital bickering at the door and put on good public demeanor.
2. Do not bring
flowers as a gift. Cut flowers
demand immediate attention and the last thing your hostess needs is the chore
of finding an appropriate vase, clippers and moss to help the flowers stand
up. Flower arranging is a tricky maneuver that sometimes demands a Martha
Stewart video to accomplish.
This is fun, right? |
3. Do not under
any circumstances arrive more than five minutes late. The hostess has timed the dinner to be cooked and still
edible by a certain time. Being
late messes up the timeline and makes the hostess anxious. If you are late do not spend another
twenty minutes telling her what happened to make you late.
4. Do not take
the hostess seriously when she says, "bring nothing." She doesn't
really mean that. A good bottle of
wine will go a long way to making the evening bearable and possibly
pleasant. Yes, she has her own
wine but inevitably guests will linger and that extra bottle will be helpful.
5. Do not ask
for hard liquor and proceed to get stinking drunk before the meal even starts.
Liquor loosens the tongue and inevitably your "good public demeanor"
will fall by the wayside and the real state of your life will be ruinously obvious,
eliminating any chance of a pleasant evening.
6. Conversely
do not choose that night to stop drinking. Going on the wagon will make you concentrate on your
sobriety. Your scintillating qualities will evaporate leaving a cranky
overzealous shell of your former self.
7. Do not
express an inability to eat anything put on the table. Do not say, "I
can't eat shellfish," etc.
You should have mentioned any life-threatening aversions at the time you
accepted the invitation. Have a
little sense for goddsakes. The hostess spent fifty dollars on those super
jumbo shrimp and now they might as well be tattooed with a skull and
crossbones.
8. Do not pile
your plate with all of the food you think will sustain you for the next
month. Take small portions until
everyone has been served.
Judicious second helpings are allowable and show the hostess you liked
her cooking.
9. Do not offer
help cleaning up. Unless the
hostess has both arms in a cast, she does not expect you to help with the
dishes. Dinner invitations are meant
to give you a night of freedom from the daily grind of feeding yourself and
cleaning up. Accept it.
10. Mail - yes,
mail as in, with a stamp - a hand written thank you note to your hostess no
later than two days after the dinner.
If you are so inclined, now is the time to have flowers delivered. Your hostess has the time to arrange
them and will think kindly of you each time she sees that lovely bouquet.
No comments:
Post a Comment