Party clumping

We went to a Xmas party last night for children's writers. A huge house with lots of open space and rooms, but everyone was clumped in the kitchen. It's always like that. What do you think causes that phenomenon?

Pack instinct. Often well-ingrained in school!

Just as when you have an office environment with cubicles, and people passing though and stopping to talk always seem to do so in the narrowest passages, blocking them, when big open spaces nearby go empty. It may be a fundamental principle of nature, related to lipid deposits collecting in arteries ...

Kitchen as meeting place can be especially problematic if a cook is busy there even if it's one of the hosts. One professional catering coobook has a section how to manage the clients and guests, and especially how to anticipate and prevent party guests wandering into the kitchen (glass in hand) to watch or eagerly chat, which are not always what the cook is there for. (I could have used those tips in the past.)

Everyone feels comfortable hanging out in a kitchen. It's what we all did as kids, and it was the center of social activity. Hard to overcome, and I'm not sure I want to.

Isn't the kitchen where the kids' table is?

Just as when you have an office environment with cubicles, and people pOne professional catering coobook has a section how to manage the clients and guests, and especially how to anticipate and prevent party guests wandering into the kitchen (glass in hand) to watch or eagerly chat, which are not always what the cook is there for. (I could have used those tips in the past.)

Does it mention Kung Pao Chicken or Mahogany Rice Noodles as ways to drive the guests out of the kitchen? Both release copious capsicum fumes of exquisite potency.

-Paul W.

I've done that to my own wife. >cough< >cough<

Martin Gardner has a pretty explanation of clumping theory, Larry.

Gardner doesn't deal with your particular example, but except for the cook, guests and empty spaces can be though of as randomly distributed throughout the house.

People tend to clump around food or activity. To more evenly distribute revelers, I always make sure there are noshables or beverages in a couple of different locations.

Martin Gardner has a pretty explanation of clumping theory, Larry.

Gardner doesn't deal with your particular example, but except for the cook, guests and empty spaces can be though of as randomly distributed throughout the house.

I've always been a fan of Gardner. He also mentions the other clumping phenomenon that bugs me: how cars clump together on a highway.

The interesting thing about highway clumping is that it actually speeds up traffic throughput. On some highway systems, cars are stopped to create clumps. Apparently the spaces between clumps leaves space, so that a slow down in one clump has less chance of slowing down other clumps.

Same thing is done on a oil pipeline that runs near our farm in Wisconsin and in coal slurry transport.

Have you ever noticed how queues also clump, like at checkouts?

Sometimes the checkout clumps are because the better checkers are working those lines.

Blacken a redfish or 2 Larry. That'll drive em' out..you too, most likely.

Richard

Larry,
You already knew this but I will say it anyway. Back at the turn of the 20th century when I was a young lad, the kitchen was the natural family gathering place. There were natural reasons for this. in winter it was the warmest room in the house, given that the kitchen stove was always lit. In the evening we could sit around the kitchen table and play card games, do our home work, or just read a book and be warm. Then of course there was always some kind of good smells in the kitchen. My theory is that down through the years gathering in the kitchen became ingrained, so ingrained, that in this time when most people thaw and heat instead of cook, it is just in the bones to gather in the kitchen. That is my story and I am sticking to it. Just before hitting the send button on this, I decided to recommend that we get Tom Hill to weigh in here since he is older than even I am. And he is from Kansas to boot.