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A Dinner Party Tradition in Paris Ivan, meet Odile, Dick, this is Camilla, Roland, Diego, Giuseppe, Petre, Wolfgang (He’s a chess grand master, by the way), Annette, Pablo, Vladimir, Peter, Ljuba, Hassan . . . Mary, you’re not talking to anyone, come over here! -- Jim Haynes, as quoted in Throw a Great Party
Haynes has dedicated his life to making such tender introductions, first in his career as an international avant garde arts impresario and for the last three decades at the legendary Sunday night dinners he holds in his Paris atelier in the 14th arrondissement. A Louisiana-born American expatriate, Haynes fell into extreme hosting in 1978 when a houseguest offered to cook dinner for a group of Jim’s friends. The event grew, first by word of mouth and then following numerous media reports, including Haynes’s own description of the dinners on NPR’s “This I Believe” series.
I learned of Jim Haynes’s 33-year dinner party on one of the many English-language blogs about life in Paris. Intrigued, I emailed to ask if there might be room for me on a Sunday I planned to be in the city. Jim responded with a friendly note saying the guest list was full but that if the weather was fine the party could spill out into the garden and there would be room to squeeze me in. Fortunately the predicted rain never arrived, so Sunday afternoon Jim emailed me directions and the entry code to the front gate. I’m as nervous as the next person about walking into a room full of strangers but Jim greeted me so warmly that I felt as if I had at least one friend at the party. Although things were already in full swing when I arrived, he was easy to spot, in his signature party attire of blue-and-white checked butcher’s apron. His abundant white mustache invites comparisons to Mark Twain and his rectangular half-glasses would look right at home on Santa Claus. From his perch on a kitchen stool in the middle of the room, Haynes lobs introductions right and left. Each week he makes a point of remembering the names of everyone on the guest list, where they’re from and what they do. “Fortunately I have an excellent memory,” he says.
Everyone at the party speaks English, at least as a second language. And, as Haynes assured me, “All the people who come here have made the statement that they’re willing to talk to others.” The guests are a diverse crowd, locals, expats and tourists from all over the globe and in all stages of life, ranging from students to retirees. Haynes usually knows around half of them personally; the rest he’s never laid eyes on. The night I went, I ended up talking to: an art dealer from Pittsburgh who said he was in Paris to sell a Picasso that had once belonged to Proust; a Russian artist named Ilya, who invited me to a gallery opening of his paintings; and a Scottish cook who described how he had succeeded in scoring a job in a Paris restaurant and what it was like to work there. Everyone had a story. The food was served by Seamus McSweeney, a translator and critic from Ireland who was passing through Paris 30 years ago on his way to Japan but never quite made it. He’s now raising money to start a school in Kenya, Jim told me. The cook for the night was Mary Bartlett, one of a rotating crew of volunteer chefs.
In 2007, she and two of the other regular cooks collaborated on Throw a Great Party: Inspired by Evenings in Paris with Jim Haynes, a cookbook that distills the wisdom of many Sundays of cooking for the multitudes. The recipes, like the guests, are an ethnic mélange, from Moroccan chicken to New Orleans red beans and rice to seafood paella. Much of the produce for the dinners comes from a friendly fruit and vegetable stand just outside the front door of the atelier. Haynes credits the cooks with making the Sunday dinners work, but a more likely source of their longevity and success is his own Pied-Piper charisma. He is, as one of his friends described him, “pathologically generous . . . a combination of Tom Sawyer, Andy Warhol and Mother Teresa.” The People to People guides to nine countries of Eastern European and Russia consisted of town-by-town directories of individuals who were prepared to help or host travelers. The listings included their interests, hobbies, occupations, languages spoken and even addresses and phone numbers. The series motto: “The people in this book want to meet you.” Jim Haynes lists his own address and phone number on his website, along an email contact. If you’re on your way to Paris, go ahead, call him up or send a note. Get yourself on the list for one of his Sunday dinners. And be prepared to meet the magical Louisianian whom a British journalist called “one of the friendliest people on earth.” To get in touch with Jim Haynes, visit his website or write to him at or phone 00 33 1 43 27 17 67 The instructions for attending the dinners, as posted on the website:
Read more GoNOMAD stories by Ann Banks: Morocco Manners: Etiquette Tips in a Land of Hospitality Morocco's Bougmez Valley: An Unspoiled Shangri-La Chefchaouen, Morocco: A Magical Dreamscape New Orleans According to "Treme"
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