Once Around the Block

I got an invitation to First Dinner, as in first of 2012.

So I took a left, a sharp left and another left with a bottle of Montand Sparkling Brut Rose in hand and ended up at an intimate little dinner party.

To make it even better, a big window was open, the better to savor this unseasonable first day of the year.

How fortunate for me that other people want to cook and share.

Both the crab, tomato and fettuccine dish and the pink bubbles held their own against stories of music and lives past.

Actually the conversation was wide-ranging, touching on greed, PDAs on a bus and spontaneous singalongs to Bryan Adams (no, not me).

Speaking of, the music was vintage (Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra) until it was romantic and melancholy (Jens Lekman, Badly Drawn Boy) but always worthy of keeping an ear cocked.

I'd like to revive the salon tradition and play host.

The good dinner parties are where you only have wise and witty people to talk to and no one wants to leave.

The best are where you leave only because you know that it won't be too long before it'll start, again.