The Multigenerational Dinner Party

Modern life is so segregated. By this I mean that we tend to socialize only with others in our age group, give or take a few years, and this--I feel--is a shame.

One of the high points of my Labor Day weekend was a multigenerational dinner party, hosted in the country by one of my oldest friends. When said friend, and her gracious husband, invited us for dinner, I declined, explaining that my parents and grandmother would be staying with us for the weekend. Although I have known this friend for about twenty-seven years, it did not so much as occur to me to accept a dinner invitation on behalf of the seven of us.

My friend thought this was foolish. Of course you will all come, she insisted, so at six o'clock on Saturday evening, the seven of us arrived, in two cars, ranging in age from almost one to going on ninety-three. My friends, who have two girls of their own, had another friend visiting for the weekend, so altogether, there were twelve of us, which in itself was not unusual. Most of us have been to a dinner party of a dozen before. Ho hum. However, when is the last time, when it wasn't Thanksgiving or another family holiday meal, that you sat around a table laden with excellent food and wine and conversed with a lively, witty crew whose ages spanned nearly a century?

I can't remember another occasion. And it was a perfect night: our host, who hails from Barcelona, made bread toasted and rubbed with ripe tomatoes, salt and olive oil, and gazpacho prepared in the traditional way with egg and croutons, and best of all an enormous seafood paella, cooked outdoors. Our hostess roasted two kinds of figs, which she served with Greek yogurt and honey. We had white wine and rose after gin and tonics on the screened-in porch, and the four girls played in the grass as we ate pistachios and homemade cheese spread. And we talked about politics, and shellfish, and books, and more politics, and it grew dark behind us, and the little ones drifted off and upstairs, where their happy, sleepy voices could be heard behind the steady buzz of conversation at the table, and I felt very fortunate, in my grandmother, who is young enough still to sneak a little extra rose when my mother is out of the room, and in my old friend, who insisted on including everybody, and for an evening when I wasn't secretly thinking to myself that we all knew everything each other had to say.

The Multigenerational Dinner Party: Its time has come.