Fanfare

For our final episode of season three, we have tossed out the script. By (possibly soon to be regretted) popular request, it’s just us, Monica and Emma, chit-chatting. We share our favourite fictional dinner parties of all time, our thoughts on how social media has changed the dinner party, tips for hosting the Emilies, and so much more. Pull up a chair, won’t you? Show Notes: Email us at fanfaref...

French actress and director Ana Girardot has brought the mother of French cinema, pioneering early 20th century filmmaker Alice Guy, to dinner. Alice qui ??? You might well be asking yourself. And to that we answer: precisely . Alice Guy was all but erased from the history of cinema until recent years, when a handful of biographers and documentarians have done some digging, and shown the world tha...

In this episode we are joined by Molly Johnson, one of Canada’s most celebrated jazz vocalists, and her imaginary dinner guest, Billie Holiday. Born Elinore Harris in Philadelphia in 1915, Billie Holiday – a name she later chose for herself – rose from a very difficult childhood in Baltimore and then New York City to become one of the greatest and most influential jazz and blues singers of all tim...

It has been a season of mysteries wrapped in riddles, and the subject of this episode is the crowning (crowned) jewel of private/public enigmas: Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II. Our real-life guest is Bethan Holt, Fashion Director for The Telegraph and author of The Queen: 70 years of Majestic Style . Queen Elizabeth II, who took the throne at only 25 and went on to have the longest verified reign...

Good golly, Miss Dolly is coming for dinner! Texas-born Los Angeles-based fashion editor (and brand consultant, stylist, and writer) Laurel Pantin might be hiding under the table caressing a sheep, so nervous is she about meeting the legendary Parton — whom she has admired since childhood for her ability to put the Sunday sunset feeling into songs, for her carefully maintained independence, and fo...

In this episode, British film producer and director Barnaby Thompson (who produced both Wayne’s World and Spice World, among 30+ other films) brings “the quintessential Englishman” and one of the twentieth century’s most famous wits, Sir Noël Coward, to a breezy (and piquant, we hope) imaginary dinner in Jamaica, where Coward spent a large portion of his later life. Cho cho and snapper escovitch a...

Rosh Mahtani, the founder of Alighieri Jewelry , began carving one piece of jewellery based on each canto of Dante’s Divine Comedy in 2014. Nine years later, she is a multi-platinum bijoutière based in London, and fans the world over are wearing a piece of poetry around their necks or in their ears. In this episode, Rosh, who spent her early childhood in Zambia and later studied French and Italian...

In our Fanfare Season 3 opener, Paris-based podcaster and author Oliver Gee, the creator of The Earful Tower, bravely invites Bob Dylan to dinner. The prospect had us trembling in our boots (of Spanish leather) at first, not only because we love Dylan’s music and are not at all sure that we’ll manage to play it as cool as he always does–even in our imaginations!–but also because there is an entire...

In this very special bonus episode, one of our dream dinner guests, Margaret Atwood, invites Saint Joan of Arc to dinner. A multi-award-winning poet, novelist, short story writer, critical essayist, graphic novelist, teacher, and environmental advocate, Margaret Atwood is the author of over 50 books published in more than 45 countries. Her most recent books include the aptly titled (for this dinne...

For our last episode of season two, we are packing a picnic of bellinis, spritzes, and fritto misto and taking a time-travelling gondola from New York at the turn of the 20th century to Paris in the ‘20s, London in the ‘30s, New York in the ‘40s, and Venice in the ‘50s with Creative Director Alex Eagle and her guest, Peggy Guggenheim. An art collector, champion (and lover) of surrealist and modern...

Find yourself a velvet cape and an ornate set of binoculars, because for this episode’s imaginary dinner party, Alexander Neef, the Director of the Paris Opera and a recent recipient of one of France’s highest artistic honours, has summoned the supremely creative and surprisingly hilarious spirit of music’s original starboy: Wolfgang Amadeus (there are other names but we will spare you) Mozart. Bo...

Today on Fanfare we are joined by one of the world’s most accomplished astronauts, Colonel Chris Hadfield, to host an imaginary dinner party in SPACE complete with theme, strict dress code, a chocolate wall, and some pretty astonishing views. It’s a good time to learn to eat without a plate (or gravity), because earlier this week, NASA’s Artemis 1 mission reached the moon with the most powerful sp...

Eve Babitz, who immortalized L.A.’s louche ‘60s and ‘70s in books like Eve’s Hollywood and Sex and Rage: Advice to Young Ladies Eager for a Good Time, has been described as “the original artsy ‘it’ girl” (in LA Magazsine), as a “groupie-adventuress” (by herself, repeatedly) as a “dowager groupie” (scathingly, by Joan Didion’s husband John Gregory Dunn), and as “L.A.’s secret genius” (by the writer...

If your tastes run to Great Kates, you’ll want to listen in on this fictive feast. Katharine Hepburn, icon of the Fashion, Feminist, and Film varieties, has been summoned by Katharine Fish, Development Executive at Hillary and Chelsea Clinton’s production company, HiddenLight, to help us understand how a strong-minded, highly-schooled, in-charge sort of woman––a wearer of pantsuits!–born in 1907 m...

Motherhood, you’ve been on our minds, to misquote Bob Dylan… so it’s only fitting that in this week’s episode Monica and Emma are joined by Jessamine Chan, the author of the New York Times Bestselling début novel The School for Good Mothers (2022). Together we cook up a not-at-all-dystopian (believe it or not) imaginary dinner party for one of our literary heroes, Kazuo Ishiguro. The 2017 Nobel La...

No one panic, but do frost the grapes on your hat because a somewhat exacting guest by the name of Pussy Jones – A.K.A. Edith Wharton – is coming to dinner. Summoned by Lauren Collins, the author of When in French: Love in a Second Language and a staff writer for The New Yorke r , Edith Wharton is coming all the way from the Gilded Age – so the least Emma could do was meet Monica and Lauren i...

Aaand we’re back for a shiny new season of fantasy dinner parties, dress codes, recipes and cultural icons – in-person and imaginary. To kick off Season Two, we are joined by filmmaker Nathalie Biancheri, the Italian-born, London-based writer and director of the conversation-starting 2021 drama Wolf, starring Lily-Rose Depp. Nathalie’s imaginary dinner guest is none other than the great Werner Her...

We missed you! And so we have hosted a surprise imaginary dinner party to tide us over until we meet again for season two. In this episode we sit down in a crumbling Hollywood mansion with essayist, journalist, author, playwright, and all-around cool customer Joan Didion to talk migraines, disguises, self respect, reporting on one’s own grief, John Wayne, and much else. Joining us for the whole Co...

He’s been our man for some time (well, one of them), so it only made sense that for our season finale, we would dream up an imaginary dinner party for Leonard Cohen. With a Montreal-and-Hydra inspired menu and some rags, feathers, and pinstripes (maybe a Famous Blue Raincoat, why not), we plan a soirée that you won’t want to miss. We have the honour and pleasure of sitting down for a glass of Chat...

Episode Description: In this episode, it’s Emma’s turn to get schooled… about fashion. First, a survey of Monica’s industry friends yields many creative answers to the question, “What are you going to wear in 2022?” Next, Monica provides Emma, who has been in lockdown since 1900 or so, with a simple, durable formula for applying actual clothing (and not just to the top half of oneself, Zoom style)...

In this episode, Monica calls on Emma and some food industry friends in France and Jamaica to help her figure out what tack to take in the eating department this year. While plant-led recipes are obviously the  ordre   du jour  for both planetary and dietary reasons, dreaming them up can sometimes feel daunting. Conveniently, Emma has had not one but two cookbooks published in the l...

Are we living in the Golden Age of television? Or are we just addicted to the binge? In this episode, an Omi-bliterated Monica and a toddler-addled Emma make it their New Year’s resolution to watch more television (manageable goals, people!). We call upon Hannah J Davies , a critic and culture writer for The Guardian, to be our TV guide. Hannah takes us on a tour of the infinite content available...

Ernest Hemingway first arrived in Paris in December of 1921. One hundred years later, Emily in Paris is back for another season. Why, chers amis, do we continue to be captivated by stories of Americans in Paris? To get to the bottom of this question, Monica and Emma enlist the help of one of our favourite writers (about Paris and in general): the author and essayist Adam Gopnik. A New Yorker staff...

Disclaimer: You may want to plug in your earphones for this one–it’s a bit spicy. In our second episode, Emma and Monica attempt to defrost the long, cold nights of winter with a conversation about sex in fiction. After a spirited game of two truths and a lie, we discuss our bedside reads of the year, from Sally Rooney’s new take on steamy millennial malaise in Beautiful World, Where Are You to Ti...

In our inaugural episode, we host an imaginary dinner party complete with menu and wardrobe for someone whose work we have been fanning out over since we were mere children in safari shorts and sweater vests: the journalist/writer/director/New York wit extraordinaire, Nora Ephron. Emma plans the menu, Monica plans the fashion, and special guest and fellow superfan Pandora Sykes arrives in time for...