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By JEFFERSON WEAVER
Staff writer
Like most Americans, I didn’t know Gwyneth Paltrow considers dinner conversation boring in America.
In case you missed it – and most folks apparently did, according to several columnists – the actress told an interviewer in Portugal (of all places!) that dinner conversation in America is primarily composed of talk about work and money.
Now, I’ll admit – Miss Rhonda and I do talk about both those topics when we sit down to eat. We also tell each other what we did that day, we discuss the latest antics of the critters, and a little bit of everything. Occasionally we even talk about silly starlets like Paltrow.
Miss Gwyneth, darlin’, I’m sorry you found this country so boring. I am truly glad that you have returned to a more civilized and sophisticated place where people apparently discuss interesting things at dinner, like whether alencon lace is out of fashion, or how life is so much better when governments penalize people who are successful, and take away basic rights like – oh, I don’t know, what you talk about at dinner.
Next time you decide to slum and come over to America, drop by the house. We’ll have you over for a nice supper – not dinner – out on the greatest porch in the country.
The difference between supper, dinner, and lunch, by the way, is a column on semantics which is best left for another day.
Miss Gwyneth, if you don’t eat deer, which is about all we have available right now, then maybe we can have something simple like some of Miss Rhonda’s omelettes, made with eggs laid by chickens we know personally.
Or perhaps we’ll take you up to the Driftwood Grill or Penn’s. You could use one of Brian’s burgers, or some of Barbara and Dorothy’s chicken and pastry.
Most importantly, you could hear some dinner conversation that matters – people talking about things like a grandchild’s excitement over Christmas, or a preacher’s sermon hitting too close to home, or how somebody’s momma is having trouble paying her taxes, buying groceries and getting her medicine.
Maybe you would be the first celebrity to take me up on a second-hand invitation to one of the famous Weatherly Sunday dinners in Kelly. Bill and Miss Margaret probably wouldn’t mind – I’ve never known them to refuse a last-minute guest. There is no such thing as boring dinner conversation there. I have never, ever, known Miss Margaret to fail to bring grace and taste to the Sunday table.
While you’re at it, maybe you should wait until one of our birthday suppers at church. If you come during the month of your birth, you get to go through the line first. I would put the cooks from our church against anyone, and if you don’t like the topic of conversation at your table, well, move to another one.
If the day of your visit is a pretty one, you’d be welcome to join us at down at the Elwell Ferry landing. For a century, people have eaten lunch, dinner or supper down there. It might be a sit-down meal on a blanket or a picnic at the shelter, or a big pot of chicken and rice, or a thrown-together covered dish dinner, but I assure you, it will be good.
The conversations might not be sprinkled with references to obscure artists, and I can guarantee the lack of political correctness would be shocking to someone as refined as you, but you might just learn something.
Besides, where else can you enjoy a pimento cheese sandwich and watch otters play while does teach their fawns how to swim around the last inland ferry in North Carolina?
Miss Gwyneth, as tart as my tone may sound, I truly mean well. It might not be that Americans have boring dinner conversations – it might just be that the semi-Americans with whom you’re conversing over dinner are boring.
Should you decide to change that, give us a call. We’re in the book.
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