rant · moment 11 of 19
Yams vs Sweet Potatoes and the Lost Art of the Dinner Party
from This Is No Way To Live · #72
Audio-only archive episode — no video to seek.
4 minA debate over yams versus sweet potatoes leads into Tim's Christmas menu complaints and a riff on famous NYC dinner party hostess Alice (a realtor) who seated power players like Bill Clinton, contrasted with modern couch-eating culture.
- 38:53Tim argues yams and sweet potatoes are completely different, not the same thing.
- 39:27Tim's family Christmas steakhouse tradition in Manhattan isn't happening this year, making him unhappy.
- 40:07When you're older and don't have kids, holidays are just menus—send him the food list and he'll decide if he's coming.
- 40:44No one cares about the craft of dinner parties anymore, about seating people strategically who can talk to each other.
- 41:01Alice, a famous realtor, hosted legendary Manhattan dinner parties in a rent-controlled apartment, inviting Yitzhak Rabin and Bill Clinton.
- 41:19Seating arrangement at a proper dinner party was a major art form that generated business through referrals.
- 41:31Modern dinner parties are dead—people just sit wherever they want, eating on couches like animals.
- 41:48Tim describes how hosts seat guests strategically next to someone with deep appreciation for Austrian School economics or morgue stories.
- 42:07Phlebotomy—the art of drawing blood—gets mentioned as part of the dinner party skill set.