From all of history: Name 3 people, you would invite for dinner : where to, who & what

I would want people of ideas, who also appreciated good food and good conversation.

A group such as Thomas Jefferson, Oscar Wilde, and Buckminster Fuller would satisfy my criterium.

While I would love to cook for them, I also wouldn't want to miss a word of the discussions. So I think I'd have somebody else do the cooking, to a menu that I put together. Either that or a tasting menu from one of the great chefs of our time, because a diversity of food flavors promotes wide-ranging talk.

That occured to me while cogitating, Margcata. But you did say just three, and that's pretty limiting. But for an addition, there's no doubt in my mind that Gypsy Rose Lee would round out that particular foursome.

Ever notice that as journalists we love asking these questions, but hate answering them?

Don't know how it is with you, but I never liked being interviewed. It's rough when the shoe is on the other foot.

After much thinking there are many diverse groups and as much as I would love to have met someone like Jimi Hendrix or John Lennon I think I would at the end invite my mothers mother and my fathers father each of whom passed away before I was born, and my mothers father who passed away shortly after I was born. I would cook something Eastern Eurpoean and peasant.

Contemporary-Tennessee Williams, Maya Angelou and Jimmy Carter 

Historical-W. A. Mozart, Thomas Jefferson, William Shakespeare

Dinner with just the girls-Jane Austen, Frances McDormand, Eleanor Roosevelt

No fair, FandF. She only asked for three.

Like my answer to most food styling questions---"It depends...."

I couldn't decide on just three, so I threw in a bit of context.

Sorry, but...

..not really.

  Margcata, Margcata, Margcata!

  I love food...it is so much of my life.  I also love music down to my bones.   But none of my guests would have anything to do with either.  In fact, I'm a little hesitant to even mention my list.  But it is mine, nothing I can do about that.

   Jesus Christ - I may just hug him and weep, lol!

   Benoit Mandelbrot - I have no business being in the same room as a man so intelligent, but his mind is so wonderful!  (I can also thank Leonardo Pisano for parts of that mind :) )

   The Devil himself - I hate to admit it, "If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; if he is thirsty, give him water to drink."  I would cook for him (my family not home of course!), probably a nice bowl of gumbo.  

   Beyond these...I can name a few more.  But then that wouldn't be following your format ;)

Dan

I can't narrow it down to just 3. There are just to many equals.

Dorothy Parker, Oscar Wilde, and Lola Montes ought to make for an entertaining group.  My martinis, my food, my patio.  "Dressy casual."

BDL

There would likely be language problems and I have no names.

Someone who could explain the Olmec culture. Someone who could explain the Chaco Culture. Number three is still undecided.

As to the meal, it would probably be a restaurant. i don't want to deal with the cooking or such.

margaux,

i haven't answered before this, not because i didn't want to, but because i couldn't decide....marley or miles, gracie or golda, billie or beethoven, picasso or puccini...the list goes on impossibly......think maybe we should  just have a big party so as to include all those who inspire us, move us, make us laugh, teach us and  for all those who have shaped our planet to make it an immeasurably better place...with that said....

andrea bocelli, meryl streep, lillian hellman..... and but of course, jacques pepin too..yeah, i know that's four, but who's gonna help me cook?

where and what to eat? a clambake/grilled lobster party on the beach!....a warm beach!!!

joey

I would like to speak to Cicero and ask him about the conspiracies of Rome, because I believe parallels exist here in the USA.

I would like to speak to someone (not Col. House) in the Woodrow Wilson cabinet who can explain to me how he was manipulated into signing the Federal Reserve into law, and how and why he was convinced to enter WWI, if he knew about American involvement in Russian Revolution or not.

I would like to speak with early Christian historians, Josephus or his contemporary, about the earliest form of the church & it's leaders, pre-Catholic, which did not begin until 3rd century.

Only 3.  There are many others I would like to speak with, but these are the most important to me.   No food people, sad to say.  Perhaps some Frenchman or Italian who can forever end the "they stole their cuisine from us" controversy.  But I'm not nearly as interested in that as the history mentioned above.

I think Oscar Wilde, Robert Burns and Winston Churchill, I think they would get on well and it could turn into quite the party, I might not even cook for them an instead just order a pizza and some beers ;)