Wicked Wednesday: Dining with Impressive Babes from the Before Times

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Edith/Maddie here, with our fourth Wicked Wednesday celebrating the ladies who went before.

Wickeds, who are the badass babes – real or fictional, related or not – from the before times you would most like to have dinner with? What would you serve, and why? Tell us about your dinner party!

Sherry: I’d love to have dinner with Jane Austen. She might not be someone who would kick someone’s butt, but she did write about her times in a way that most authors didn’t. I’d love to find out what gave her the courage to do that. I’d take Jane out to dinner probably at a nice Italian restaurant. We’d have a nice glass or two of wine, some great pasta.

Julie: I have so many answers to this! I love the idea of taking Jane Austen out for Italian. I could go a few ways with this. A dinner party with Ida B. Wells, Eleanor Roosevelt and Gloria Steinhem could be great for the conversation. A dinner party with Amelia Edwards (real), Amelia Peabody (fiction), Barbara Mertz (creator of Amelia Peabody and Egyptologist) and a current day Egyptologist would be fun to the knowledge, and the updates. A dinner with Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, and the Wickeds would be a blast. As for the food? Does it matter?

Edith/Maddie: Those all sound like great combos, Julie. And Jane Austen for an intimate dinner out does, too. Author Leslie Karst actually cooked dinner for Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her husband (and wrote a memoir about it, which might be coming out soon)! I’d love to assemble the Notorious RBG, Amelia Earhart, Alice Paul, and Gloria Steinem (after she’s done with dinner at Julie’s) and let them talk about women’s rights. I’d keep the menu simple: a big pot of beef bourguignon, crusty bread, a big green salad, and apple pie.

Barb: I think I’d have the late PD James and Ruth Rendell (who were friends despite a political divide), and living authors Anne Cleeves, Louise Penny and Tana French to talk mysteries and writing.

Readers: Who do you want to dine with, and what would you eat?

Published by Edith Maxwell

Agatha Award -winning author Edith Maxwell writes the historical Quaker Midwife Mysteries (Beyond the Page) and short crime fiction. As Maddie Day she writes the Country Store Mysteries series, the Cozy Capers Book Group Mysteries, and the Cece Barton Mysteries (all from Kensington Publishing). She lives north of Boston in an antique house with her beau and cat Martin, where she writes, gardens, cooks, and wastes time on Facebook.

15 Thoughts

  1. I would invite all of you Wickeds to a brunch at our little cottage. It would be snug seating around the table, but I know the table talk would be amazing and entertaining and FUN!!! We would serve brunch buffet style and offer our Breakfast Sausage Casserole that we make with our own sausage and lots of English muffins, toast points, fresh fruit and pastries. There is also a Cherry Muffin recipe that everyone seems to like that we could serve and of course lots of hot coffee and tea with juice for those who want it. I would be too excited to sit down and spend my time, refilling cups and visiting with each of you. I feel sure that murders would be discussed and plots worked on with input from all.

  2. In addition to those mentioned, I’d like to sit down with Hedy Lamarr and talk technology. I’m not sure what the food would be, but I am sure there’d be booze and plenty of it!

  4. Amelia Earhart, Mary Kingsley, Agatha Christie, Beryl Markham, and Isak Dinesen. Yeah, there’s a theme here. I love adventure travel and want to hear first hand stories of these great women. Don’t know for sure what the menu would be, but I think it would have to be foods that could be picked at for hours.

  5. I would like to have lunch or dinner with Dashiell Hammett, also attended by Humphrey Bogart, William Powell and Myrna Loy as I am a big fan of “The Thin Man” movies and “The Maltese Falcon.” If it was to take place in San Francisco, we could go to some of Hammett’s haunts.

  6. Of course, I forgot to say what we would eat!! Oh no! If in San Francisco, it would be seafood, but otherwise a great steak!

  7. I’d love to cook for Julia Child. Cooks never get cooked for, because people are always so afraid the meal won’t be “good enough,” but cooks love food–all food–so they/we are the BEST people to cook for! And the chance to break bread with Julia and hear her hearty laugh as she tells a bawdy story? Priceless.

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