dinner party fantasies

i've spent some time today, pondering my thanksgiving menu. we've invited a bunch of family and friends and their expectations are high as to experiencing an authentic american thanksgiving dinner, so i've been planning ahead. (the photo above is from last year, where it was a much smaller affair.) i love to cook and i love to have diverse guests and i love to see what happens when people meet and get to talking. so i'm looking forward to that, although i will undoubtedly be in a horrible panic on the day and forget to put at least one key dish on the table. things kind of spiral from my control at the last minute, but i'm old enough now that i've come to see it as part of my charm. or so i tell myself, as i take a giant swig of wine to calm my nerves.

but in all this planning, i got to thinking about dinner parties and guests. and that classic old question about who you would invite to dinner if you could invite anyone, living or dead.  what group would you put together around your table?

some names sprung immediately to mind. dorothy parker for one. her sharp wit and cynicism would be most welcome. slovenian philosopher and prolific writer slavoj zizek would also be most welcome - he straddles postmodernism and whatever it is that's coming next and i'd like to talk about contemporary politics in that light. for husband, we'd have to invite pierre bourdieu, because nearly all of husband's theories about everything are based on his notion of cultural capital. for husband's sake, we'd also have to invite nytimes columnist thomas friedman. i'd love to see what would happen between him and zizek. and because i would have written my dissertation on their works, i'd have to invite russian writer andrei bitov and yugoslav croatian dubravka ugresic. i think orhan pamuk, turkish nobel literature prize-winner would add something to the group as well. for a bit of glamour, i was thinking about nigella lawson, and she could maybe even help me out a bit in the kitchen. i'd like an artist or two, but can't really settle on one in my mind...matisse, perhaps? or asger jorn?

of course, this isn't to say that i'm not perfectly happy with the guests who are coming. i am, among them are some of the most interesting people i know...art historians, a musician, an actress, a policewoman, a head of entertainment at a t.v. station, and a couple of the most creative, funniest people i know. but i know that those who are coming would get a big kick out of dorothy, slavoj, pierre, thomas, andrei, dubravka and orhan and they would ADORE nigella. for sure. i mean, who wouldn't?

who would you invite to your fantasy dinner party?