Please, come in to my apartment. No, I don’t have any chairs
The densest substance known to this planet is osmium, atomic number 76. The second densest substance known to this planet is the chocolate “mousse” I made for friends on Saturday night. You could wattle and daub a house with it, or perhaps line the exterior of a nuclear bunker. The recipe called for dark chocolate, egg whites, a bit of caster sugar (check, check, check), but also the human qualities of patience and serenity (no dice). And so here we go, choco-osmium.
I was hosting seven friends for a dinner party in my one-bed flat – a barrister, a journalist, one currently trying to “get fired” from their finance gig and a few other miscellaneous strays. You could swing a house cat in here, to borrow a cliché, but probably not a cheetah, and certainly not an Irish wolfhound. I don’t have a dining table or chairs, but I do have a sofa and a shin-level sideboard. One person was sitting on the floor, two more on bar stools. Nothing in here was the right height. And sorry – you’ll have to eat that tagliatelle with a spoon. I ran out of forks.
We ate a ragù bianco. It had been simmering since the morning, and, as such, my curtains clung valiantly to the smell of pork fat and fennel. We dipped toasted bread in tapenade – pulled together with olives, anchovies, lemon, black pepper, an immersion blender and a pure heart. The wine was in tumblers and, so, yes, it did get a bit warm. When one guest produced a Barbera that far exceeds our budgets, I couldn’t help but suspect him of theft. “Oh, to be so bohemian and insouciant!” I hear you, readers, chime. I know, I know – I just can’t help it.
It has become rather fashionable to condemn the traditional dinner party – with its napkin rings and thick-stemmed wine glasses, the etiquette, the knowing risottos; all those side plates and tedious chatter about the State of Things. In the 1980s there would have been some sort of prawn cocktail; in the 2000s, dinner guests were threatened with sun-dried tomatoes and hand-wringing conversations about Iraq, all drizzled in a balsamic glaze.
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No more, thank God. Chairs? Napkins? The London housing market forces the urgent question: what if you ate that ricotta on the floor?
Don’t mind if I do – the poky flat is cool, thanks for asking. But while the diminutive size added a rakish charm to my evening, it did cause problems in the kitchen. You see, I learned how to cook by spending hours of my childhood and teenage years watching my parents mince, sauté and dice. But I don’t ever remember attending the lesson “Drop Every Knife You Have on the Floor – Yes, Even That Really Big One.” It must have happened, of course, otherwise I wouldn’t have done it myself on Saturday night. That, or a kitchen designed for one simply cannot withstand the duress of preparing a dinner for seven.
Moving on: after that almighty clatter, all knives were put back on the counter and the anchovies safely returned to the fridge. I still had my fingers and toes. But at least two thirds of the guests were very drunk; they were (if my landlord could stop reading here) smoking cigarettes out of the window; and the clumsiest among them broke my wi-fi box.
With the exception of the chocolate mousse-cement – and let’s just chalk that up to temperamental differences – it went well, and everyone was happy. And guess what? There wasn’t a napkin ring or sun-dried tomato in sight.
My friends left – and I’ll be honest, I’m hazy on exactly when that was – and I looked around. Had a bomb gone off in here? Who left their house keys, and why was there so much ricotta on my copy of the New Statesman Easter Special? No matter. It’s an occupational hazard when it comes to exceeding the safe maximum occupancy of a room by about 75 per cent. Not too small, I mutter to myself – bohemian. So take a note of that, please.
[Further reading: How to cook the Easter Bunny]
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This article appears in the 08 Apr 2026 issue of the New Statesman, The Fall
