“The idea is to work your way through the eight phases of the din­ner party, answer­ing all of the ques­tions on the way — being as hon­est and cre­ative as you wish. Once your home­work has been com­pleted, please nom­i­nate any num­ber of blog­gers to host their very own “vir­tual” din­ner party.”

Thanks Gra­ham for this food meme ! So let’s try to feed our Eng­lish guy’s imag­i­na­tion. And if you haven’t vis­ited his On Man’s Travel Blog, go now ! The food will wait… it’s not like I’m gonna be on time any­way!

1) The Din­ner Party Theme

You have decided to hold a din­ner party. When writ­ing the invites you clearly state that fancy dress must be worn. Assum­ing that cost is no issue, who or what would you dress up as, and why?

I’d tell every­one to dress warm. Because after all, it’s Octo­ber and this is Canada. And mostly because I’d love to host a diner in an igloo! Sounds crazy? Well, not really actu­ally. I’ve read some­where that even though it might be down to –30C out­side, tem­per­a­ture inside may be as “high” as 17C when warmed by body heat alone.

So we would all be seat­ing on the ground, wrapped in col­or­ful blan­kets and there would be a fire some­where. Although we have to make sure it doesn’t melt the snow… nah, I’ll research that beforehand !

2) The Invitations

This din­ner party is for 6 peo­ple (includ­ing your­self), you are allowed to invite any 5 other peo­ple (either past, present, real or fic­tional), who would you invite and why?

My guest list would include :

• The Pink Floyd, Manu Chao, Lou Reed and Thom Yorke : for nice-yet-not-to-loud music and great dis­cus­sions about their inspi­ra­tion and life experiences
• The Sub­com­man­dante Mar­cos, Karl Marx and Mao Zedong : it’s a unique chance to finally under­stand them! Although we might require sub­ti­tles… oh well.
• Friends from all over the world. I’d love to see a mul­ti­cul­tural diner, where each con­ti­nent and as many cul­tures would be rep­re­sented. Like the UN but funnier.

Should be fun!

3) The Starter

You are prepar­ing the menu, which dish(es) would you choose as the starter, and why?

Okay, first of all, I have to warn you : you are going to be dis­ap­pointed because of my lack of Frenchy-ness when it comes to food. Truth is, I like all kind of cuisines but French isn’t my favorite. Yes Gra­ham, I’m not a frog-leg per­son, nor a snail eater, nor a weird-animals-parts eater. Sorry. I hope you haven’t chocked on your fish & chips.

So, as a starter, I’d serve:

• Veg­gies and some hum­mus dip
• A mine­strone soup
• A few Chun­juan (spring rolls — yes, I make these myself !)

But this is just the beginning…

4) The Main Course

Okay, now for the main course? and what drink would you serve with it?

I like the Chi­nese way of eat­ing where there are quite a few dishes, small quan­ti­ties of each. So, I’ll serve:

• Some fine Ital­ian ravi­o­lis (fill­ing would red pep­per, spinach and feta)
• Roasted pota­toes with basil and fine herbs
• Stir-fried veg­gies cooked in coconut milk
• Pacific salmon with lemon and but­ter sauce
• BBQ chicken with salsa

Have a smoke, relax, the desserts are coming!

5) The Sweet

Finally, the sweet. Which would you choose, and why?

Same here, you would have a bit of each flavor:

• Yogurt and honey
• A rich choco­late mousse
• Some coconut bread

Now, let’s have fun!

6) The Entertainment

The din­ner party has gone swim­mingly, every­body has had fun, con­ver­sa­tion and drinks have been flow­ing all evening. At the end of the meal you announce that every­body should per­form their ‘party piece’ (no mat­ter how strange or point­less). What party piece would you perform?

I’m sure we would have plenty to talk about, but I’d like to ask peo­ple to bring their favorite book and read a few pages from it. I by chance one of us can play the gui­tar (and that won’t be me, I’m telling ya!), we would all sing, no mat­ter how bad we can be — as long as the spirit is here!

7) The End Of The Evening:
The party is over, every­body has gone home, the house sud­denly feels empty and quiet. Your eyes fix on the hi-fi in the cor­ner of the room. You search through your CD col­lec­tion to put on some music as you want to lis­ten to one more track before your retire to bed. Which track would you play?

I’d play the fol­low­ing songs:

• Shine On You Crazy Dia­mond by the Pink Floyd
• Karma Police by Radiohead
• Sounds Of Silence by Simon And Garfunkel
• Soledad by the Mano Negra

Some good songs…

The Din­ner Party Nightmares

Okay, so the “vir­tual” din­ner party is over. Now for the real thing. Have you ever been to or hosted a din­ner party dur­ing which some­thing has gone wrong (either with the food, a guest or some­thing else)?

To be hon­est, I haven’t hosted a diner party in… years. We usu­ally go to restau­rant, cafés, park etc. I can’t really remem­ber any­thing going wrong… I mean, the usual. Real­iz­ing the gas tank is empty and sleep­ing on the beach because well, there’s no gas sta­tion any­where close and come to think of it we’re in the mid­dle of nowhere (that was back in France). Not being able to find the way home because appar­ently, the food got us high (that and other stuffs I guess to be hon­est). Burn­ing the food and end­ing up with take outs. Lock­ing our­selves out. The usual, right?

—————–

So, I’d like to tag a few peo­ple here for this meme:

• Shionge and her So Shiok…! (she has some cool pic­tures of Asian dishes once in a while!)
• Traveller’s Tales is a blog I recently start read­ing. Would be per­fect for this meme!
• Tun­nel­ing thru’ is a new blog in my RSS feed, but it looks very promis­ing. Made me laugh right away, so I’d be curi­ous to see what she comes up with for this meme!
• Aiglee and her A New Life In Canada : she looks like the kind of per­son who throw great diner party!

Have fun !

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1. Do You Speak Canadian…Eh?
2. The Hill And Its Inhab­i­tants (10÷10)
3. Christ­mas, Guatemalan Style
4. Chi­nese New Year in S’pore
5. The Picky Eaters