The Door of Delight

We invited Bengt for lunch in Monsaraz (at Amigos), and then he insisted on paying - told him we might invite him every week! 

Capon, ch 15, "The Long Session", on proper sit-down dinner parties, and here he really has influenced me; I liked them before I read his book, but he persuaded me to persevere with them. His justification for them ends thus:

Last, the dinner party is a true proclamation of the abundance of being - a rebuke to the thrifty little idolatries by which we lose sight of the lavish hand that made us. It is precisely because no one needs soup, fish, meat, salad, cheese, and dessert at one meal that we so badly need to sit down to them from time to time. It was largesse that made us all; we were not created to fast forever. The unnecessary is the taproot of our being and the last key to the door of delight. Enter here, therefore, as a sovereign remedy for the narrowness of our minds and the stinginess of our souls, the formal dinner for six, eight or ten chosen guests, the true convivium - the long Session that brings us nearly home.


Mike's matching photo.