Hello Neighbor!

My parents used to regularly host dinner parties.  On the night of one such party, I was a new driver, tooling around with my best friend, and I accidentally grinded the gears of the stick shift (remember those?) in front of two cute guys we knew from school.  We arrived at my house, mortified teens, saying we’d never been “so embarrassed!” . . . then we got over it and went to a movie.  Hours later, we returned to find the tableful of adults sitting just where we’d left them, laughing hysterically, sharing stories of their most-embarrassing moments.

My husband and I don’t host or attend many “old-school” dinner parties.  Pizza night, yes, and certainly summer BBQ’s, but not a lot of plan-the-menu, sit-down dinners.  This NYT article suggests the dinner party has fallen out of fashion: “Guess Who Isn’t Coming to Dinner”, citing reasons like our kids’ schedules keeping us too busy, and technology preventing us from participating in decent conversations.

Our neighborhood has a progressive dinner party every year in early June.  Organized foodies design; brave souls host.  I must confess I haven’t yet hosted and that I sometimes need to psyche myself up for the mingling, but I always end up enjoying the evening.

Dinner parties take effort, yes, but there’s value in sharing good food, chat, and laughter with friends, old and new.  Should we start a movement?  #bringbackthedinnerparty.

Who’s Free Next Friday?
Katie L.