Best 22 quotes in «dinner party quotes» category

The dinner-table is often the terrain of critical conversations, for it is there one has the better of one's interlocutor. There is no escape without scandal, there is no turning aside without self-betrayal. To invite a person to dinner is to place them under observation. Every dining-room is a temporary prison where politeness chains the guests to the laden board.

The dinner Parrin serves- vichyssoise, squab, rice pilaf, green salad, chocolate-orange mousse- is all very "of the moment" and delicious, as I knew it would be.

The first dinner-party of a bride's career is a momentous occasion, entailing a world of small anxieties. The accomplishments which have won her acclaim in the three years since she left the schoolroom are no longer enough. It is no longer enough to dress exquisitely, to chuse jewels exactly appropriate to the situation, to converse in French, to play the pianoforte and sing. Now she must turn her attention to French cooking and French wines. Though other people may advise her upon these important matters, her own taste and inclinations must guide her. She is sure to despise her mother's style of entertaining and wish to do things differently. In London fashionable people dine out four, five times a week. However will a new bride - nineteen years old and scarcely ever in a kitchen before - think of a meal to astonish and delight such jaded palates?

There were fireflies riding on the dark air and a dog baying on some low and far-away ledge of the cliff. The table seemed to have risen a little toward the sky like a mechanical dancing platform, giving the people around it a sense of being alone with each other in the dark universe, nourished by its only food, warmed by its only lights. And, as if a curious hushed laugh from Mrs. McKisco were a signal that such a detachment from the world had been attained, the two Divers began suddenly to warm and glow and expand, as if to make up to their guests, already so subtly assured of their importance, so flattered with politeness, for anything they might still miss from that country well left behind. Just for a moment they seemed to speak to every one at the table, singly and together, assuring them of their friendliness, their affection. And for a moment the faces turned up toward them were like the faces of poor children at a Christmas tree. Then abruptly the table broke up - the moment when the guests had been daringly lifted above conviviality into the rarer atmosphere of sentiment, was over before it could be irreverently breathed, before they had half realized it was there. But the diffused magic of the hot sweet South had withdrawn into them - the soft-pawed night and the ghostly wash of the Mediterranean far below - the magic left these things and melted into the two Divers and became part of them. Tender is the Night, Ch VII

The meal began with pickled squid, oyster shooters, marinated anchovies, and scungilli salad. Then Rosalie set an enormous bowl of pasta con le vongole in front of Sal, who ladled it out, talking the entire time. The pasta was followed by huge platters of scampi, which we passed around. It was almost eleven when Rosalie set three enormous stuffed turbots on the table, and it was near midnight when she appeared with a plate of warm sugar-dusted sfinge. "So our first taste of the New Year will be sweet," Sal whispered in my ear.

There’s something special about gathering a few favorite people for a meal. A beautifully set table is the perfect canvas for a delicious meal.

You wear your armor even to dinner, Lady Wilhelmina?" “Of course I wear armor. I am sitting with a pirate, a mercenary, an adventurer, and a bounder. If a shot is not fired tonight, I daresay that your reputations are nothing but lies.

If we can put a man on the moon, we can make pantyhose comfortable.

Claire lifted her glass after everyone had eaten. "Everyone make a toast. To food and flowers," she said. "To love and laughter," Tyler said. "To old and new," Henry said. "To what's next," Evanelle said. "To the apple tree," Bay said.

Dinners at Stony Cross Park were famously lavish, and this one was no exception. Eight courses of fish, game, poultry, and beef were served, accompanied by fresh flower arrangements that were brought to the table with each new remove. They began with turtle soup, broiled salmon with capers, perch and mullet in cream, and succulent Jon Dory fish dressed with a delicate shrimp sauce. The next course consisted of peppered venison, herb-garnished ham, gently fried sweetbreads floating in steaming gravy, and crisp-skinned roast fowl. And so on and so forth, until the guests were stuffed and lethargic, their faces flushed from the constant replenishing of their wineglasses by attentive footmen. The dinner was concluded with a succession of platters filled with almond cheesecakes, lemon puddings, and rice souffles.

However grand our sacramental downsittings and updressings may be, they remain only and precisely sacraments: real presences, under particular signs, of the happier order that faith can discover under any and all signs. They're a bit like the church. As long as we see them as an earnest of the kingdom, they're all right; when we put on airs and act as if they were the kingdom itself, they look just silly.

Dinner-parties bore us because our imagination is absent, and reading interests us because it is keeping us company.

If it was my business, I wouldn't talk about it. It is very vulgar to talk about one's business. Only people like stockbroker's do that, and then merely at dinner parties.

In crises of this sort the Dyckmanns had usually found it effective to stare into space, encouraging the long pause that might fetch the witty words, 'Well, dear, we must go.' But the Bairds were on an entirely different wavelength, and this was the fault of the Dyckmanns. With the removal of the bottles it had been the mutual impulse of the Bairds to shoot out the door, but their second thought was that they must not... (from "Dinner on the Rocks" (1954) by Dawn Powell)

I like to cook for 2, or for 4 or 6 at the most 8 people. Beyond that you get into quantity cooking and that is just not my field at all. The last time we had 12 for a sit-down dinner and I did all the cooking, and Paul and I did all the setting up, serving, and washing up afterwards, I said never again. I’ll do a buffet, but I don’t consider that civilized dining; it is feeding, and I like to sit down at a well-set table.

In the rosy glow it diffused her companions seemed full of amiable qualities. She liked their elegance; their lightness, their lack of emphasis: even the self-assurance which at times was so like obtuseness now seemed the natural sign of social ascendency. They were lords of the only world she cared for, and they were ready to admit her to their ranks and let her lord it with them. Already she felt within her a stealing allegiance to their standards, an acceptance of their limitations, a disbelief in the things they did not believe in, a contemptuous pity for the people who were not able to live as they lived.

I pulled my mind off the table and stared into the dimness beyond, and then I gradually saw the servants as real people, watching us, whispering instructions to each other, exchanging glances. I noticed a girl from Godsend village and gave her a tiny wink - and wished I hadn't, because she let out a little snort of laughter and then looked in terror at the butler.

It had been a long time since she had been served such exquisite food. The lukewarm offerings at the London soirees and parties couldn't begin to compare to this feast. In the past few months the Peyton household been able to afford much more than bread, bacon, and soup, with the occasional helping of fried sole or stewed mutton. For once she was glad not to have been seated next to a sparkling conversationalist, as it allowed her long periods of silence during which she could eat as much as she liked. And with the servants constantly offering new and dazzling dishes for the guests to sample, no one seemed to notice the unladylike gusto of her appetite. Hungrily she consumed a bowl of soup made with champagne and Camembert, followed by delicate veal strips coated in herb-dressed sauce, and tender vegetable marrow in cream... fish baked in clever little paper cases, which let out a burst of fragrant steam when opened... tiny buttered potatoes served on beds of watercress... and, most delightful of all, fruit relish served in hollowed-out orange rinds.

It was a pity she couldn't do justice to the meal, which featured Scottish salmon, steaming roast joints, venison haunch accompanied by sausages and sweetbreads, and elaborate vegetable casseroles dressed with cream and butter and truffles. For dessert there were platters of luxury fruits; raspberries, nectarines, cherries, peaches and pineapples, as well as a surfeit of cakes, tarts, and syllabubs.

Some change at once went through them all, as if this had really happened, and they were all conscious of making a party together...; had their common cause against that fluidity out there... and now the same effect was got by the many candles in the sparely furnished room, and the uncurtained windows, and the bright mask-like look of faces seen by candlelight. Some weight was taken off them; anything might happen…

She remembered something she overheard at a dinner party -- Everyone loses their mind at least once in this lifetime. Everyone.

She is never going to let me live down that stupid Thanksgiving," Kai says. I can't help but take the bait. "You made prime rib!" "It was delicious," Kai says, shrugging. "IT WAS BEEF! You can't have beef on Thanksgiving, except for appetizers like meatballs or something. You have TURKEY on Thanksgiving." Last Thanksgiving I spent with Phil and Kai, since I was orphaned and separated and Gilly couldn't make it from London. Everything was delicious, but it was like a dinner party and not Thanksgiving. The prime rib wasn't the only anomaly. No mashed potatoes or stuffing or sweet potatoes with marshmallows or green bean casserole. He had acorn squash with cippolini onions and balsamic glaze. Asparagus almondine. Corn custard with oyster mushrooms. Wild rice with currants and pistachios and mint. All amazing and perfectly cooked and balanced, and not remotely what I wanted for Thanksgiving. When I refused to take leftovers, his feelings were hurt, and when he got to the store two days later, he let me know. "Look," Kai says with infinite patience. "For a week we prepped for the Thanksgiving pickups." He ticks off on his fingers the classic menu we developed together for the customers who wanted a traditional meal without the guilt. "Herb-brined turkey breasts with apricot glaze and roasted shallot jus. Stuffing muffins with sage and pumpkin seeds. Cranberry sauce with dried cherries and port. Pumpkin soup, and healthy mashed potatoes, and glazed sweet potatoes with orange and thyme, and green beans with wild mushroom ragu, and roasted brussels sprouts, and pumpkin mousse and apple cake. We cooked Thanksgiving and tasted Thanksgiving and took Thanksgiving leftovers home at the end of the day. I just thought you would be SICK OF TURKEY!