A note from Henry & Claudine,

Many we invite to our Jim Haynes-inspired dinner parties don't know the background, so let us tell you some of it now. 

Jim invited the world to dinner almost every Sunday evening starting in 1978 until the Covid interruptus of 2020. Jim passed away soon thereafter — January of 2021.  He lived an inspiring life full of art, culture and convention-challenging conversation, 87 years of it. His obit in the Guardian is a must read.

It was January 2014 when Claudine and I attended a Sunday dinner at Jim’s atelier in the 14th arrondissement of Paris. Jim hosted these parties in the sincere belief that if people from all corners just met, many of the world’s problems would dissolve. He continued to hold these parties virtually every Sunday until Covid forced him to break the string. At one point someone calculated that over a hundred thousand people attended Jim's dinners.

The night we attended at Jim’s place we met Ambré Honigman, a dynamic Parisian psychotherapist; Michael Edwards, the widely acknowledged world authority on perfume, author of Fragrances of the World; Sheetal Chavda and another striking sari-clad Indian MD, both in Paris for a conference; Alladine LaCroix, a writer just finishing a book about her mother and the libertine art world she inhabited in the 1920s; Michele Yurick, a photo stylist and grey haired model who had flown in from Portland OR for a Nike shoot; various other artists and a playwright whose names I failed to retain, not to mention several French men who found Claudine fascinating and had no interest in meeting me. Indeed, they chided her for bringing me to the party. It was great fun.

Whenever people told us they were going to Paris, we’d encourage them to experience Jim’s hospitality and the unpredictable crowd at his party.  Tracy Chang not only attended, she chef’d the dinner, and I was not surprised when Jim later told me she created the most memorable meal of the 40+ years of his Sunday dinners.

So now it’s up to others to keep Jim’s spirit alive, and Claudine and I have stepped up.   As of this writing, we’ve held ten gatherings, and are committed to holding one per month, May through October, at our White Pond, Concord MA cottage. Please join us and please invite someone else – someone we all should get to know.

— Henry Patterson (“HPatt”)