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#90 Dinner Parties


dinnerparty.jpgThough many would have you believe that white people come of age at Summer Camp, it’s simply not the truth. Immediately following graduation but prior to renovating a house, white people take their first step from childhood to maturity by hosting a successful dinner party.

It is imperative that white people know how to host a good dinner party as they will be expected to do it well into retirement.

At the most basic level, these simple gatherings involve 3-6 couples getting together at a single house or apartment, having dinner and talking for 5-6 hours. Though it might seem basic these events are some of the most stressful situations in all of white culture.

Hosts are expected to deliver a magical evening. The food must be home made with fresh, organic ingredients, the music must be just right (ambient, new, but not too loud), and the decorations inside the house should be subtle but elegant. The ultimate goal is to do a better job than the couple at the last dinner party while attempting to make everyone jealous and sort of dislike you.

The dinner party is the opportunity for white people to be judged on their taste in food, wine, furniture, art, interior design, music, and books. Outside of dictatorships and a few murder trials, there might not be a more rigorous judgment process in the modern world. Everything must be perfect. One copy of US Weekly, a McDonalds wrapper, a book by John Grisham, a Third Eye Blind CD, or an Old School DVD can undo months and maybe even years of work.

Even before guests arrive the pressure on the host is immense and it does not let up once people begin to arrive. While eating, drinking, and conversation are expected to fill up 5-6 hours, sometimes it’s just not enough. In order to fill the silence, white people will often turn to board games (Cranium!) or Wii Bowling. This lets everyone have fun together without having to really talk to each other, which is usually more fun anyways.

It is strongly encouraged to bring a gift to these dinner parties, usually either wine or some kind of dessert. If you are able to bring a particularly rare dish from your culture, you will be the star of the party. To seal the deal, be sure to explain as much as you possibly can about the dish: history, availability, and the proper way to eat it. Every white person at the party will be taking mental notes and will be in your debt for introducing them to something new and authentic. If a white person says they have eaten the dish before, it is best to respond by saying “you ate a watered down version. They don’t even sell this to white people, it’s that intense. Even I had to show ID.”

The entire party will universally acknowledge you as the top guests, even the hosts will appreciate you for bringing diversity to the table in both food and person form.


806 Responses to “#90 Dinner Parties”

hey…i just keep getting whiter, when will it stop?!


My EX, was like a Martha Stewart wannabe… She always had to throw these painful dinner parties… Had to make sure the hippest CD’s were loaded in the Bang & Olufsen CD changer… Gram Parsons, Early Dylan mixed with other newer crap like the Shins, fresh (expensive) cut flowers, all organic ingredients, and of course, she let everyone know, french butter, live baby spinach, fancy linen napkins, NPR on the Tivoli radio playing low in the “Powder Room”. No lights on except in the kitchen– everywhere else, all fancy huge candles.
Because I drove a car older than 10 years… she asked me to park my car “down the street”.
Most of the conversation revolved around the most esoteric restraunts, and sushi places, and of course she knew, and name-dropped all of the owner’s names, and spoke of them as if they were all close personal friends!
Not being a big “food” snob, I always was the quiet one at the end of the table, and was generally ignored, because I didn’t have the highly developed appreciation foods & wines of she & her friends!
I felt…. Un-white!


Dont Worry Bruce on March 26, 2008 at 11:33 pm

Unbeknownst to your ex, she had the social equivalent of toilet paper stuck to her shoe the whole time. First of all, showing effort on more than one or two things (a dish, a flower-backed-up-with-a-story, a really amazing playlist on the mac mini under your TV) is like admitting you are not sufficiently passionate about anything in particular, like you read a blog post about how to throw the perfect dinner party and made a checklist. You have to expressly not care about at least half those things.

Also, you can leapfrog her with a couple tricks. First of all, make sangria with brandy. Everybody will get drunk quick without making people feel they are drinking other than wine. Get wine with screwcaps - this is like brilliant jiujitsu whereby the in-the-know (screwcaps are better) get extra enjoyment out of knowing that they know that you know that some of the less in-the-know guests think they have one up on you, whereas it is in fact you who have one up on them. Get some skirt steak, bavette steak, or flank steak, grill or broil it and cut it into strips. This will allow you to put it on a single platter in the middle of the table, and with the salad and starch and veg you have the “family style” effect and a totally passable menu in < 60 mins. This is important because of the last rule your ex overlooked, which is that you can’t over plan these things. In fact the psychic root of the dinner party is that white people want to leave their houses on certain nights, but they don’t want to “go out”. In fact the most successful dinner parties are born of this need - on a Thursday you throw the “dinner party” lifeline to someone who needs something to do on the weekend, then you snowball it out to include their friend and their friend’s friend, and whammo, you have a dinner party. Not expending the extra effort will telegraph that you really know what you are doing.


 

…ha bruce, that was funny…parking your car down the
street…..the women meant business.


 
Miss Vicious on May 2, 2008 at 11:23 am

I once threw a dinner party, but all we had was spaghetti, and I didn’t have a dining room, or a dining room table, so everyone sat on the floor around the coffee table. So after reading this post, I also feel very un-white. We can be un-white together.


 
 

I am so white, I am beyond pale!


 

All you need to have a good white dinner party is a couple of “I can top that” stories. Once you get that started you’ve outdone yourself and everyone who contributes thinks they are the most popular (truly a white obsession).

White people (myself included) can’t even listen to the other toppers’ stories because we are already digging one up from our past and ready to pounce so as not to allow anybody else the chance to top that before we get our OMG story told.

Truly a dinner party to top all dinner parties.


You must be an Aggie?!


 
 
 

OKay so How do other races do dinner with guests ??


They do it with turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce and football.


 

My family has never had dinner parties. People just say they are showing up and do so. Then we offer them food, talk about how screwed up our homelands are and end up dancing drunken, yet skillful, merengue. :) go dominicans!


Token Engineer on April 16, 2008 at 12:19 am

Life in Washington Heights/Inwood/Marble hill! Gotta love the arroz con gandules/abichuelas!


 
 

Back yard bar-b-que with hotdogs, burgers, shredded pork, beans, collards, and beer. My white friend introduced me to mojitos and kabobs so I like that now.


 

Chinese: I have a big family and we celebrate birthdays once a month. We go to a big Chinese restaurant, take up two huge round tables and order a bunch of shit. Then we eat, and talk, and the old ones fight over the bill. Then we go back and they watch sports.

Filipino: I have an even larger Filipino side of the family, many people whom I don’t know. We go to some Auntie’s house, arrive about half an hour later than most people (people trickle in eventually). There are plates of food on the table, the kitchen island, the counters. Food absolutely EVERYWHERE. Self-serve, self-sit, enjoy. Sometimes we watch a pirated movie.


 
 

ok this is the artical that did it for me. I not only host, attend and activley take part in such dinner parties…I ENJOY them!
Definitive moment in my life.I am white.wow. Thank you!


…me too…i love good food and wine and good friends and usually in this atmosphere we caucasions display our best manners.


 
 

you have to admit tho…whatever faults we white folks may have; white women can be pretty easy on the eyes. like the blond in the photo.


 
 
 
ZaphodBeebleBotox on March 18, 2008 at 8:20 pm

ABSOLUTELY classic! One of the best!
A John Grisham novel undoing years of work! LMAO!


…or how bout Atlas Shrugg.


 
 

Taboo or Shoot the Moon is also popular!!!!!


 

ahh finally board games makes an appearance.


 
 
Get Over Yourself... on March 18, 2008 at 8:26 pm

Damn.
White.
People.
Are.
Superficial.


*sigh* yes, but its all we have.


 
 

I ripped off stuffwhitepeoplelike in my latest post on ipostupost.com, except in my version, you get to decide who likes what.


 

And don’t forget to invite your black/gay friends with PhD’s in anthropology. ;)


 
SteveTheRunner on March 18, 2008 at 8:27 pm

one of the funniest posts yet!


 

this blog sucks. it’s poorly written and chooses topics that are obvious. college students like ramen; how original.


 
 

Wow pretty funny, I’m 40 and still have not been able to throw a successful dinner party, good for BBQ’s but no table inside to sit at!
Cheers!
Jeff ;-} & Jack =^..^= the cat
Best of the net http://www.jeffslist.net


 

“you ate a watered down version. They don’t even sell this to white people, it’s that intense. Even I had to show ID.”

On. The. Floor. HILARIOUS


 

Doh! Th’ Wife and I are slated to meet with 2 other couples to start putting on dinner parties! Now I’m a foppish whitebread? C’mon, all our other friends are too scattered, strugglin’ and “under the weather” to make box macaroni, let alone mildly complex meals. We’re married with kids and don’t get out much! Well, at least I’m the boorish lout in the social group; we’ll hardly get graded much worse than we already are for having taste beneath the “New York Review of Books.”

“Suburban Bourgeois Boho,” with its ridiculous attempt to display a cultivated palate, is still better than “Downtown Artist” — when you hit your mid-thirties like I have, you get tired of hearing about stories that begin and start with weed, and the surly neighborhood youths…


 

Yes! White people LOVE dinner parties!!


 
 

Great post. Wine, cheese, dining–time to pull out all the “Crate and Barrel stuff.

http://www.jonesview.wordpress.com


 

‘… it is best to respond by saying “you ate a watered down version. They don’t even sell this to white people, it’s that intense. ..’

I must remember that.


 

Hey now, I love dinner parties too!

Although, I wasn’t introduced to the concept of the “dinner party” until my freshman year when I met this lovely white couple from Indiana…


 

I found that some kind of theme usually accompanies the better dinner parties.

http://www.jonesview.wordpress.com


just as long as it doesn’t involve any costumes or elaborate activities (like *ugh* a murder mystery). then it becomes a themed party and is no longer just dinner and conversation.


 
 

Watch those apostrophes, son.


 

Jeffrey Dahmer belongs in the Dinner Party Hall of Fame. I hear he had some *really* exotic fare.


 

Dinner parties are fun. I’m even hosting one tomorrow. Here in college it’s a great way to have a good and wholesome time that stands out in a semester of routine.


 

The terminology is confusing, to be sure, but remember: never, ever, ever, ever hold your “dinner party” at a “supper club”.

It will take years to shake off a reputation as “the wrong sort of white people”.


 

I do love this whole project–but it is starting to get old–interject something new in it


 

I absolutely can not believe that Burning Man has not made its way onto your blog yet.


 
 

As someone who dangerously straddles the fence between white and “ethnic”, this website is immensly helpful for me as I sort out my identity.

Just brilliant!!


 

holy shit this was one of my favorite yet, and that’s saying a lot because I love all of your stuff. I am indeed white, and I can tell you there is nothing my mother loves more than an excruciatingly well-planned dinner party. you hit the nail on the head every time.

oh, I also found the john grisham reference extremely hilarious.


 

“One copy of… a book by John Grisham… can undo months and maybe even years of work.”

Economists call this “Grisham’s Law”– bad literature drives out good: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gresham’s_Law


 

I had my first one several years ago…it was intense pressure! Not one since. If only a guest might have brought homemade nanima bars…


 

there is nothing my middle-aged white mother loves more than an excruciatingly well-planned dinner party.

love it.


 

wait, there’s a john grisham stigma?


 

YES! And cooking “ethnic” cuisine too! Some of the stuff I have done: Shabu Shabu, Vegan Pho, Indian.


 

Don’t forget the beet & goat cheese appetizer, the staple of EVERY WHITE PERSON MENU EVER (at least in Los Angeles).


 

This isnt true! im white and i hate dinner parties. jk

im at a dinner party right now.


 

@ Mammoth…only white drugged out losers go to burning man (think 40 year old men with $100K in student loan debt for going to eastern medicine school to become acupuncturists)…it’s definitely not something that white-urban-hipster-yuppies do. We make fun of people who go to burning man.


 

At a recent dinner party, the background music was “I Heard It on NPR” Jazz CD.


 

“… The dinner party is the opportunity for white people to be judged on their taste in food, wine, furniture, art, interior design, music, and books.”

Totally true. It’s a vetting process, when you get down to it.

So far, this site is one for the ages. Keep bringing the funny!


 

“In order to fill the silence, white people will often turn to board games (Cranium!) or Wii Bowling.”

Don’t forget cooking! Time spent finishing dinner translates into phased talking times. :)


 
Entry Level White Person on March 18, 2008 at 9:46 pm

Only the most intrepid hosts dare break out iced tubs of PBR as beverage of choice during Wii Bowling.

Do you have the ironic chops it takes to pull it off?

…Well do ya, PUNK?


 

C & M, I am picking my school later today

Thank you for your support

Terrelle


 

And of course, only couples are invited to the dinner parties.

http://moveitmoveit.wordpress.com


 

#26 Or at least talking about the original Burning Man Jack Parsons…

I can’t believe photography hasn’t got a post, especially analogue, on vintage cameras in B&W. Hogla anyone?


 

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. There even is a Stuff Iranian People Like now.


 

Spice up the dinner party by fancyin’ up cheap food that the other whiteys wouldn’t ever be caught eating if they knew it! The possibilities are endless!!!


 
 

I’ve read all of these and find them funny, but scarily accurate. In this one, is your first noticible mistake, I’m pretty sure. “sometimes it’s just no enough.” should be “sometimes it’s just not enough.” If I’m not mistaken.


White people also like to edit what they read.


 
 
 

You forgot about the white wife who drinks too much wine and tells embarrassing sexual stories about her husband. He slouches in the couch and verbally abuses her in the car ride home.

http://thisdevilsworkday.wordpress.com/


 

In the Czech Republic it is customary to have evening sessions, rather than dinner parties, so people are sat around couches, armchairs and TV tables. The funny thing often is that it is customary to REFUSE THE FIRST OFFER (”would you like some this or that” ;) because you don’t want to be the first hungry or thirsty one, or the first alcoholic, for that matter, but later when more people join, it is easier to accept…

The Daily Czech


 

Go thru host’s medicine cabinet too. Hosts, pay attention and stash your “skeletons”. We whiteys can be sneaky and will eat our own for personal gain.


 

My white girlfriend and I Love Dinner Parties but because we live on the wrong side of town there aren’t any, and no one will drive over to our house when we throw one. How can we solve this problem until our neighborhood is fully gentrified? http://vipersofeden.wordpress.com