Someone once asked me at a dinner party...who I would invite to a dinner party and what I would serve. The latter answer is easy -- filet mignon grilled fast in brandy and minced shallots, lobster tails slathered in drawn butter and lemon zest, grilled asparagus, roasted new potatoes with rosemary and crushed garlic cloves, and grapefruit salad dressed with sea salt and extra virgin olive oil. Napa Cabernet Sauvignon and New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc for the lobster. New York style cheesecake topped with ripe raspberries and port wine for dessert.
Then there would be cigars and cognac.
As for the guest list, that becomes problematic. Most of my heroes have left this plane of existence, but if we could resurrect them (and language was no barrier to our conversation), I would invite Jesus, Buddha, Aristotle, Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, John Coltrane, Bill Evans (no relation), Cleopatra, Louise Brooks, Myrna Loy, Jean Renoir, Picasso, Neil Armstrong, Cary Grant, Stanley Kubrick, Henri Georges Clouzot, Jeanne Moreau, possibly Richard III, definitely Abraham Lincoln and Ingmar Bergman, Grace Kelly if she was free that night, and Jimi Hendrix, because he was always Stone Free. If there was still room at the table I would welcome Ed Wood Jr., Phil Tucker (who directed Robot Monster, one of the most sublime and yet still awful films I have seen), Victor Hugo and Joan of Arc, Ghandi (he would pass on the fillets of beef, no doubt), and James Agee, who may be the most under-appreciated writer of the 20th century.
I think I would ask Marilyn Monroe for a date that evening, not for the reasons you might think, but because I might be able to pierce her shell ( I am good like that) and perhaps understand the demons that drove her. Plus, I am confident that I could kick Jack Kennedy's (or Bobby''s) ass into the street.
And by the time we got around to the cigars and brandy, I would ask Beethoven to perform for us all.
Here, then, is the coda on my perfect dinner party...wandering outdoors we would all encounter the most wonderful thing I have seen since the dawn of the Internet.
Life is beautiful. I would do well to remember that. So would we all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
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