It’s Tough to Stomach Dinner Parties

The worst dinner party I ever went to lasted almost as long as the Six Day War.

It happened here, in Los Angeles, the alleged restaurant capital of the world.

I was stuck. Flanked by two guys with an excess of gel products slathered on their heads, sitting across from a woman proclaiming “the skill, the genius” of her plastic surgeon, and just up the table from a man and woman hotly debating the merits of “Thelma and Louise.”

All this, plus food in front of me that I could not send back.

I mean, it was a dinner party in someone’s house.

Which is one reason, especially if you live in the alleged restaurant capital of the world, to eat out in commercial establishments. Even if you have to pay for parking and can never hear, understand or remember what the specials are.

The problem with dinner parties is that they are confining. You have to eat what is served and talk to people you don’t want to see again for the rest of your life.

And since lots of times no one knows anyone else, what alternative is there to talking about their big important studio job or the remodel of their Montecito house or how many times they’ve seen “Phantom”? I find myself talking with unnecessarily exaggerated inflection.

“ Really ,” I might say in response to someone complaining that they ran into traffic on the way. “ Whatever did you do? “

I hear myself and wonder: Why am I talking like that? Of course--it is some sort of little-understood neurological disorder that for the sake of brevity I’ll call the dinner party thing.

At dinner parties in Los Angeles, where lots of people have had an acting class or two or at least know actors or say they do, everyone laughs at everything. Such sidesplitting lines--if written for a TV sitcom they would earn someone a pile of money--as, “Would you please pass the cream and sugar” can get people choking on their homemade pate, which you happen to know was bought at Gelson’s.

At a restaurant, if you were hard up for conversation, you might say: “Look at her. Obviously she’s had implants.” Or “Look at the non-power eaters. They’ve got the worst table in the place.” You can’t say that in people’s homes about their friends.

Also, in a restaurant, you can order what you want, and if you don’t like it, you can not eat it or send it back: “Listen, I think Wolfgang may need a couple of days off. I’d like to try something else.”

Imagine doing that in someone’s home: “Listen, Bev, I appreciate your efforts on the roast, but it’s tougher than all get-out.”

You can’t say that. And most of the time you need to because there’s this belief out there that if you live in the Palisades and drive a BMW, you can cook.

So you get folks serving up their own bizarre concoctions, such as braised endangered species with pea and pineapple mousse, papaya and lentil souffle, and poached jalapenos with chocolate ricotta stuffing and cilantro flambe.

You are expected to sit there and eat it. You are expected to eat it in a home that has been recently redone by one of L. A.’s designers to the stars, a combination of factors that often has me craving motion sickness medication.

The best part about eating in restaurants instead of people’s houses, besides the food and the diversions, is that when the check comes you get to go home--as opposed to sitting around someone’s house until no one can think of anything else to say, until you’ve had it up to here with cafe au lait . And when you’ve got a roomful of people all flaring their nostrils to stifle yawns, even then the hostess says, “You’re leaving already?”

Some people think it is a greater demonstration of friendship and hospitality to have people in their homes than to go out with them.

They’re wrong.

Of course, some people can have a lively, entertaining dinner party. One where you meet people you want to call the next day. One where you want the get-together to last all night.

But I don’t know those people. I think it’s a lot safer to go out for pizza.