I try to get them working. My older son is 10 and he's pretty interested. We had a dinner party the other night and he helped a lot. He helped peel asparagus; he hung out. It was great.

It was a pity she couldn't do justice to the meal, which featured Scottish salmon, steaming roast joints, venison haunch accompanied by sausages and sweetbreads, and elaborate vegetable casseroles dressed with cream and butter and truffles. For dessert there were platters of luxury fruits; raspberries, nectarines, cherries, peaches and pineapples, as well as a surfeit of cakes, tarts, and syllabubs.

The formal Washington dinner party has all the spontaneity of a Japanese imperial funeral.

At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely.

'Dance Dance Revolution.' That's a lot of fun when you're having a dinner party and you just want to be a little silly.

I've never been to a dinner party where everyone at the dinner table didn't say something funny.