Authors: Corey Mintz

How to Host a Dinner Party (25 page)

Finally, how could I forget the people who raised me? I wouldn’t be who I am today if I hadn’t been taught about the difference between right and wrong and the value of hard work. So thank you, television.

COREY MINTZ
hosts dinner parties in his home every week for his popular
Toronto Star
column, “Fed.” Before that he was a restaurant critic. And before that he worked for a living, as a cook. In the past three years, he has hosted more than 150 dinner parties. He began without napkins or stemware, serving wine out of Nutella jars. But after hosting politicians, artists, academics, monkeys, librarians, chefs, sommeliers, cops, lawyers, psychologists, a spy, a forager, a rabbi, a gambler, a drug addict, and a mayor, he’s become a pro.

ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

House of Anansi Press was founded in 1967 with a mandate to publish Canadian-authored books, a mandate that continues to this day even as the list has branched out to include internationally acclaimed thinkers and writers. The press immediately gained attention for significant titles by notable writers such as Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, George Grant, and Northrop Frye. Since then, Anansi’s commitment to finding, publishing and promoting challenging, excellent writing has won it tremendous acclaim and solid staying power. Today Anansi is Canada’s pre-eminent independent press, and home to nationally and internationally bestselling and acclaimed authors such as Gil Adamson, Margaret Atwood, Ken Babstock, Peter Behrens, Rawi Hage, Misha Glenny, Jim Harrison, A. L. Kennedy, Pasha Malla, Lisa Moore, A. F. Moritz, Eric Siblin, Karen Solie, and Ronald Wright. Anansi is also proud to publish the award-winning nonfiction series The CBC Massey Lectures. In 2007, 2009, 2010, and 2011 Anansi was honoured by the Canadian Booksellers Association as “Publisher of the Year.”

Table of Contents

Openers

Contents

Introduction by Sarah Polley

Prologue

Chapter One