Yvette’s Fantasy Dinner Party: Tidjane Thiam, Samin Nosrat, Elizabeth Gilbert, Modupe Fadugba, Alain de Botton, and Amal Clooney.
By: Yvette Uloma Dimiri
Tags: Fantasy Dinner, Lockdown, Tuscany

During the global lockdown, The FT started a fantasy dinner party series. Here I am, 9 months after the lockdown in Lagos, and I find myself having a much quieter Christmas than I imagined. So, I decided to write my own fantasy dinner! I’m hosting guests that have fascinated me this year, and in a few cases, for many years.

No revolutionaries, that’s the only hard no I have as far as dinner guests are concerned. I find their company exhausting and conversation monolithic. I want people who are a little misunderstood.

My guests have all made the three-hour drive up from Rome to Conti di San Bonifacio, well, everyone except Tidjane, who I’ve only just met. The boutique winery resort is hidden between the Maremma hills and the plains of the Tuscan coastline. After the year Tidjane has had, I understand.

Alain is the first to arrive, still fiddling with his collar when I meet him on the graveled path. For someone who has so much to say about human anxieties, his own social anxiety surprises me, disarms me even.

Now to say hello, is it a kiss, two kisses, three kisses? Where are we?

“Alain, this is Tidjane. Tijdane, Alain,” I introduce them hurriedly. It doesn’t take them long to bring up Switzerland, which they share in common. They also share divorce in common, but it might take a while to get there.

We’re eating outside, overlooking the vineyard. The table is romantically under two lines of large golden light bulbs hung up in between two trees.

It’s the violet hour, of course. Sunsets are best seen through glasses of wine.

We start with the Prosseco. Modupe and Amal arrive at the same time, laughing already. It’s going to be a good night.

The ever bubbly Samin Nosrat is our chef and a guest. She walks out beaming with a plate of Bruschetta and Foccacia for us to nibble. The focaccia is spongey and salty. Samin taught me to love cooking during the lockdown, so who else more fitting to help us celebrate freedom on a summer’s evening.

Elizabeth arrives late and holding a bottle of wine — to dinner at a vineyard. This is something only Elizabeth would do, but I love her for it. She’s always been otherworldly.

As she arrives, so too does the basil pesto with handmade pasta and a mound of parmesan.

We’re on to the vineyard’s red blend, which tastes like a rush of red fruit. Samin brings out tiny bowls of beef stew just as Modupe explains what inspired her most recent exhibition, Dream from the Deep End.

“Everyone has a swim story,” Modupe says.

We all give a pensive nod.

I glance at Amal’s intense big brown eyes, the type that makes you feel perfectly understood. She might be the closest to breaking my “no revolutionaries” rule, with the herculean tasks she takes on as a human rights lawyer.

Alain asks the question, “In what ways did the pandemic cement something you believe in?”

Elizabeth goes first, “being brave with my life is really the only thing I’m interested in.”

For dessert, we have a fluffy chocolate mousse. I’ve lost track of how we’re doing on the wine. But these things should never be counted anyway.