The Dining Room


Dinner Parties
Sharing a meal and breaking bread with family and friends has been a tradition, it seems, for as long as there have been people. It is a chance to come together over a common need - to eat - and a common desire - to socialize and spend time with people we like.

Meal gatherings can be simple, informal affairs, like having friends over for a barbeque, or a potluck. They can also be more formal as to celebrate a special occassion, or have a theme. Some people make the meal itself an event, others will make the preparation part of the get together, and everyone is involved. For some, no socializing of any kind could occur without food.

A traditional Dinner party is a formal event, often marked by dress, and certainly in presentation. It is a relaxed, intimate event. The standard would be a sit down dinner, possibly catered or served by others, semi-formal to formal attire, although these days something along the lines of khakis and a button down shirt with no tie may prove to be sufficient. Variations of this have been the "Progressive Dinner" where each course is served at a different person's home.

Here is a list of the top twenty most popular dinner guests, from an unscientific online poll where respondants can invite any ten people, living or dead, real or fictional. Who would you invite? Go on, take the quiz.

"At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely."
W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965)


Dining and dinner parties, in the words of Miss Emily Post:
Emily Post (1873�1960). Etiquette. 1922.
Chapter XIV.
Formal Dinners
NOT FOR THE NOVICE TO ATTEMPT
IF the great world of society were a university which issued degrees to those whom it trains to its usages, the magna cum laude honors would be awarded without question, not to the hostess who may have given the most marvelous ball of the decade, but to her who knows best every component detail of preparation and service, no less than every inexorable rule of etiquette, in formal dinner-giving.

To give a perfect dinner of ceremony is the supreme accomplishment of a hostess! It means not alone perfection of furnishing, of service, of culinary skill, but also of personal charm, of tact. The only other occasion when a hostess must have equal and possibly even greater ability is the large and somewhat formal week-end party, which includes a dinner or two as by no means its least formidable features.

There are so many aspects to be considered in dinner giving that it is difficult to know whether to begin upstairs or down, or with furnishing, or service, or people, or manners! One thing is certain, no novice should ever begin her social career by attempting a formal dinner, any more than a pupil swimmer, upon being able to take three strokes alone, should attempt to swim three miles out to sea. The former will as surely drown as the latter.





Setting the Table

The choice of formal dinnerware is very personal, sometimes sentimental, sometimes practical, sometimes a gift, sometimes...something else.

My choice is to use the King's Crown pattern, originating in the later 1800's. Some of my pieces even date from that time, but more of them are from the 1920's and 1930's. There is more detail about the pattern and why I collect it on my Collectors page, but the short version is that it started as gift from one of my grandmothers, and it went very well with my antique dining room table.

Aside from trying to collect every type of piece ever made, that hardest part of King's Crown is hand washing it after dinner. The red color isn't red glass, it's just a flashing on top of the class and as such, has a tendancy over time to chip, scratch and flake off.


Emily Post
Western Silver Dining Etiquette
Etiquette Avenue
American Dining Manners
Dining Etiquette
Dinner Party Etiquette

Gay Dinner Party book (2004)
Dinner party ideas
Linda's Dinner Party Menus
iVillage Cocktail and Dinner Parties
Dinner Party Basics
Ten Commandments of Dinner Parties
Dinner Party Theme
Dinner Party Recipes

Setting a Table
Table Settings
Farmer's Almanac Full Table Setting
Table Setting Ideas
Table Setting 101


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Last Updated on October 6, 2004
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