Luncheon Best Quotes

I have been Foolish and Deluded,” said he, “and I am a Bear of No Brain at All.” “You’re the Best Bear in All the World,” said Christopher Robin soothingly. “Am I?” said Pooh hopefully. And then he brightened up suddenly. “Anyhow,” he said, “it is nearly Luncheon Time.” So he went home for it.

The best example I know, of this astonishingly stupid attitude towards sport, is that of Franz Ferdinand. His, however, was an achievement with the gun. He used to shoot at Konopist with no less than seven weapons and four loaders, and he once killed more than 4,000 birds, himself, in one day. [A propos of statistics and quite beside the point: a Yorkshireman once drank 52½ pints of beer in one hour.] Now why did Franz Ferdinand do this? Even if he shot for twelve hours at a stretch, without pause for luncheon, it means that he killed six birds in each minute of the day. The mere manual labour, a pheasant every ten seconds for twelve successive hours, is enough to make a road-mender stagger; and there is little wonder that, by the time the unhappy archduke had accumulated his collection of 300,000 head of game, he was shooting with rubber pads on his coat and a bandage round his ears. The unfortunate man had practically stunned himself with gunpowder, long before they bagged him also at Sarajevo.

Soon thereafter, a maid brought Poppy a tray of neat boxes tied with ribbons. Opening them, Poppy discovered that one was filled with toffee, another with boiled sweets, and another with Turkish delight. Best of all, one box was filled with a new confection called "eating-chocolates" that had been all the rage at the London Exhibition. "Where did these come from?" Poppy asked Harry when he returned to her room after a brief visit to the front offices. "From the sweet shop." "No, these," Poppy showed him the eating-chocolates. "No one can get them. The makers, Fellows and Son, have closed their shop while they moved to a new location. The ladies at the philanthropic luncheon were talking about it." "I sent Valentine to the Fellows residence to ask them to make a special batch for you." Harry smiled as he saw the paper twists scattered across the counterpane. "I see you've sampled them." "Have one," Poppy said generously. Harry shook his head. "I don't like sweets." But he bent down obligingly as she gestured for him to come closer. She reached out to him, her fingers catching the knot of his necktie. Harry's smile faded as Poppy exerted gentle tension, drawing him down. He was suspended over her, an impending weight of muscle and masculine drive. As her sugared breath blew against his lips, she sensed the deep tremor within him. And she was aware of a new equilibrium between them, a balance of will and curiosity. Harry held still, letting her do as she wished. She tugged him closer until her mouth brushed his. The contact was brief but vital, striking a glow of heat. Poppy released him carefully, and Harry drew back. "You won't kiss me for diamonds," he said, his voice slightly raspy, "but you will for chocolates?" Poppy nodded. As Harry turned his face away, she saw his cheek tauten with a smile. "I'll put in a daily order, then.

The first of the telegrams arrived shortly after noon, and Jeeves brought it in with the before-luncheon snifter. It was from Aunt Dahlia, operating from Market Snodsbury, a small town of sorts a mile or two along the main road as it leaves her country seat. It ran as follows: Come at once. Travers. And when I say it puzzled me like the dickens, I am understating it, if anything. As mysterious a communication, I considered, as was ever flashed over the wires. I studied it in a profound reverie for the best part of two dry Martinis and a dividend. I read it backwards. I read it forwards. As a matter of fact, I have a sort of recollection of even smelling it. But it still baffled me.

Now, I have to tell you, this reminds me of a story. Actually, it’s an old baseball story. You see, one day, old Lucifer down there from his headquarters called St. Peter in Heaven, said they wanted to challenge him to a baseball game. And St. Peter said, “Sure, let’s play. But to be fair, I have to tell you all the great ones are up here. We’ve got Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Satchel Paige, Roberto Clemente. We’ve got all the best players, and our manager is the legendary Connie Mack. You won’t have a chance.” Well, old Lucifer says, “That doesn’t matter, we’ll win anyway.” And St. Peter says, “How do you expect to do that?” “Well,” he says, “simple, we’ve got all the umpires.” Luncheon for Representative Connie Mack Miami, Florida June 29, 1988

NORMAN’S EGG SALAD 4 cups peeled and chopped hard-boiled eggs.*** (That’s about a dozen extra large eggs—measure after chopping) 1/2 cup crumbled cooked bacon (make your own or use real crumbled bacon from a can—I used Hormel Premium Real Crumbled Bacon) 1 Tablespoon chopped parsley (it’s better if it’s fresh, but you can use dried parsley flakes if you don’t have fresh on hand) 1/4 cup grated carrots (for color and a bit of sweetness) 4 ounces cream cheese 1/4 cup sour cream 1/2 cup mayonnaise (I used Best Foods, which is Hellmann’s in some states) 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder (or 1/2 teaspoon freshly minced garlic) 1/2 teaspoon onion powder (or 1 teaspoon freshly minced onion) salt to taste freshly ground black pepper to taste   Peel and chop the hard-boiled eggs. Add the crumbled bacon, the parsley, and the grated carrots. Mix well.   Put the cream cheese in a small bowl and microwave for 30 seconds on HIGH to soften it. If it can be easily stirred with a fork, add the sour cream and mayonnaise, and mix well. If the cream cheese is still too solid, give it another 10 seconds or so before you add the other ingredients.   Stir in the garlic powder and onion powder.   Add the cream cheese mixture to the bowl with the eggs and stir it all up. Add salt and freshly ground pepper to taste, and chill until ready to serve.   Serve by itself on a lettuce leaf, as filling in a sandwich, or stuffed in Hannah’s Very Best Cream Puffs for a fancy luncheon.   Yield: Makes approximately a dozen superb egg salad sandwiches.

It wasn’t bad, for a while playing around alone, and calling myself a grass-widow, as a joke. But the real thing is an entirely different matter. It’s no fun being an extra woman of any kind for long, in society. If you don’t own a husband, or a brother, or some two-legged article in trousers, you drop out of things—out of evening things, anyhow. Of course, there are luncheons, and teas, and women’s shindies left, but I get on best with men, and I look best in evening clothes, too. I’m the kind, anyhow, who wants to take in everything that’s going. The more places you’re seen at the more you go to, and it’s just life to me to keep going!

Ned Sherrin Ned Sherrin is a satirist, novelist, anthologist, film producer, and celebrated theater director who has been at the heart of British broadcasting and the arts for more than fifty years. I had met Diana, Princess of Wales--perhaps “I had been presented to” is more accurate--in lineups after charity shows that I had been compering and at which she was the royal guest of honor. There were the usual polite exchanges. On royal visits backstage, Princess Alexandra was the most relaxed, on occasion wickedly suggesting that she caught a glimpse of romantic chemistry between two performers and setting off giggles. Princess Margaret was the most artistically acute, the Queen the most conscientious; although she did once sweep past me to get to Bill Haley, of whom she was a fan. Prince Edward could, at one time, be persuaded to do an irreverent impression of his older brother, Prince Charles. Princess Diana seemed to enjoy herself, but she was still new to the job and did not linger down the line. Around this time, a friend of mine opened a restaurant in London. From one conversation, I gathered that although it was packed in the evenings, business was slow at lunchtime. Soon afterward, I got a very “cloak-and-dagger” phone call from him. He spoke in hushed tones, muttering something like “Lunch next Wednesday, small party, royal person, hush-hush.” From this, I inferred that he wanted me and, I had no doubt, other friends to bring a small party to dress the restaurant, to which he was bringing the “royal person” in a bid to up its fashionable appeal during the day. When Wednesday dawned, the luncheon clashed with a couple of meetings, and although feeling disloyal, I did not see how I was going to be able to round up three or four people--even for a free lunch. Guiltily, I rang his office and apologized profusely to his secretary for not being able to make it. The next morning, he telephoned, puzzled and aggrieved. “There were only going to be the four of us,” he said. “Princess Diana had been looking forward to meeting you properly. She was very disappointed that you couldn’t make it.” I felt suitably stupid--but, as luck had it, a few weeks later I found myself sitting next to her at a charity dinner at the Garrick Club. I explained the whole disastrous misunderstanding, and we had a very jolly time laughing at the coincidence that she was dining at this exclusive club before her husband, who had just been elected a member with some publicity. Prince Charles was in the hospital at the time recuperating from a polo injury. Although hindsight tells us that the marriage was already in difficulties, that was not generally known, so in answer to my inquiries, she replied sympathetically that he was recovering well. We talked a lot about the theater and her faux pas some years before when she had been to Noel Coward’s Hay Fever and confessed to the star, Penelope Keith, that it was the first Coward play that she had seen. “The first,” said Penelope, shocked. “Well,” Diana said to me, “I was only eighteen!” Our meeting was at the height of the AIDS crisis, and as we were both working a lot for AIDS charities, we had many notes to compare and friends to mourn. The evening ended with a dance--but being no Travolta myself, I doubt that my partnering was the high point for her.

Putting out the last of the rusty folding chairs that propagated in barn corners, I couldn’t help but think the luncheon had the air of a shower, an event commemorating a big life change. Sitting down, we formed a loose circle, plates on our laps, while our supportive friends, many of them business owners them- selves, murmured encouraging words to us. To be truthful, I’ve grown suspicious of life events that trigger showers. It feels like the calm before the storm, the harbinger of things to suck. Historically, these were occasions for women to share their collective marriage or child-rearing wisdom gathered along their own journeys. But that’s not what hap- pens today. We’ve become too politically correct to issue opinions based on our experience, thus leaving attendees of such fetes to fall flat of the original intent. I know; I’ve participated in such group failings myself. But unable to bring ourselves to lay out reality for the honoree, we adopt an “ignorance is bliss” attitude and distract the guest of honor with a Cuisinart, a Diaper Genie, and assorted petit fours—and, like those gathered around the barn, just smile, hoping for the best for this new endeavor.

Lady Tosten started angling for an invitation to luncheon in earnest, but that looming disaster was averted when Winnie came pelting around the corner, her smock hiked past her knees, her feet bare, her eyes dancing with mirth, and a carrot clutched in her fist. “Oh!” She skidded to a stop. “Hullo, Rosecroft! I am hiding.” “Not very effectively,” the earl remarked, “at least not from me.” His eyes challenged her to be on her best behavior, and Winnie obediently waited for his cue. “Come here, Winnie, and make your curtsey to our guests.” He extended his hand to her, expecting her to take off in the other direction, but instead she came docilely forward. “Good morning, my ladies.” She curtsied to each woman then turned her gaze to the earl. “Well done, princess. You’ve been practicing. I’m impressed.” “Bronwyn Farnum!” Emmie bellowed as she, too, came pelting around the corner. Her bun was coming loose, she wore no bonnet, and—to the earl’s delight—she was barefoot in the grass, as well. “You cheated, you!” A stunned silence met that pronouncement while Emmie’s cheeks flamed bright red. “I beg your pardon, my lord, my ladies. Winnie, perhaps you’d accompany me back to the stables?” She held out a hand, and at a nod from the earl, Winnie took the proffered hand. “Miss Farnum.” The earl turned a particularly gracious smile on her. “You are to be complimented on Winnie’s manners. We’ll excuse you, though, if Herodotus is pining for his carrots.” “My thanks.” Emmie nodded stiffly and turned, leaving silence in her wake. “Well,

after a luncheon party with Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Luise Rainer, Greta Garbo, and two producers—“I think it was a psychological test to see how I would act”—Knopf offered O’Brien work as MGM’s “European Scenario Editor.

Mama, is that Aunt Eula’s chicken recipe?” Emily tore into a drumstick with enough fervor for both of them. “Sure is.” Her aunts had been up since before dawn cooking. The sweets table was piled with pies and sponge cake with fresh berries and Aunt Marline’s divinity fudge. She picked at her chicken, feeling her appetite improving with each bite of familiar cooking. “Can I have seconds, Mama?” “Of course. let me get some for you.” Alaine took Em’s plate to the buffet, still loaded with more food than an army could do away with. She chose a drumstick from the plate of chicken, then froze. “Now, Stella, it’s quaint,” Mrs. Mark Grafton, Pierce’s mother. Alaine stiffened. “They’ve done the best they can— and I think they rather expected us to enjoy a country luncheon.” “But chicken fricassee? For a wedding luncheon? Are they going to have us dance a reel next?” A woman younger than Mrs. Grafton, but bearing the same sharp dark eyes, tittered quietly. “I told Pierce they should have a fish course, at least. And a consommé. Of course I knew an aspic would be asking far too much.” “Pierce always did have an independent streak.” Stella said this as though it were a blight. “Marrying some country nobody when the Harris girls or Georgia Lawson would have—” “Not polite to speak of it now, dear,” Mrs. Grafton said with a tone that told Alaine it was only propriety keeping her from joining. Alaine seethed. Delphine wasn’t a nobody— she was better than any of these Perrysburg ninnies. “Pierce has his career to consider, that’s all I’m saying. She can’t go blundering about, mucking that up. After all, we stand to catch the ill effects of any mistakes she makes.” “I’ve advised Pierce how to handle himself, and he’ll make sure she knows her place. You needn’t concern yourself with your brother’s affairs.” Mrs. Grafton swept away in a wake of heady perfume, but not before Alaine heard her add in a sharp whisper, “He didn’t listen to me about marrying the girl, why do you think he’d listen about a fish course?” Neither Grafton woman had noticed Alaine; they were, Alaine presumed, well practiced in ignoring anything that didn’t benefit them specifically. Country nobody, indeed— Del would show them all up before Christmas. If the best chicken in the county wasn’t good enough for the Graftons, she would enjoy it double.


Later, with the benefit of hindsight, some would contend that this unusual use of water damned the ship, but at the time, Arizona was a dry state and, according to the Times, “the ‘teetotalers’ and the rest of the Arizonians demanded that the Arizona be named with water as well as wine.” As the ship slid faster and faster down the ways, one estimate claimed it bested fifteen knots by the time it hit the water of the East River and floated off in the direction of the Williamsburg Bridge. A flotilla of tugs swarmed around the hull and shepherded it to a dock in the Navy Yard for completion.2 Afterward, before an invited luncheon crowd of nine hundred guests, Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels expounded at length on the role of the United States Navy on the global stage. When it was her turn to say a few words, Esther Ross came right to the point: “Mr. Secretary, friends,” she told Daniels and those seated before her, “this is the proudest day of my life, because I have christened the largest battleship in the world with the name of the greatest state in the union.”3

If we did the hard work of forming these relationships and preserving these connections, millions of them, old and new, official and unofficial, then together they would form lasting bonds—“sinews of peace,” he called them. “The Sinews of Peace,” he underscored for his audience in Fulton that day, was the title of his speech and its purpose. This speech was not a call to arms. It was a call to form Constellations. He feared that Americans might want to sit it out in isolation again after two world wars or, just as bad, remain perpetually poised for war, with the Western world dependent on American military might. Winning wasn’t the end—it was a prologue to a new and different kind of work. “We aim at nothing but mutual assistance and collaboration” to increase “each other’s . . . powers.” Remember that Churchill had foreshadowed this at the welcome luncheon for Winant when he said that with victory would come “solemn but splendid duties.” It was time to let go of the Pyramid mindset. This would require “faith in each other’s purpose, hope in each other’s future, and charity towards each other’s shortcomings.