Fork Fest Review

Don’t trim that fat for my sake, Comrade.*

NUMBER 6

November 2004

On a glorious Saturday the 13th of November Fork Fest held its annual and highly anticipated pre-Christmas dinner, with a table set for twenty or so guests and only three or four—having been invited into this exclusive event—that did not make it (which meant less dishes for me to wash and more pork for me to eat) and they will not be asked back again. Ever. They had their chance. The Dinner Club shows no mercy.

French First

Guests arrived, on an almost balmy evening, toting extra bottles of refreshment and the latest in
de rigueur party accoutrement: the folding chair. Imagine your favorite socialite (or socialist. Hey Trotsky nice chair dude!) toting their Chanel folding party chair (mine would have to be Burberry, darling) and vying for choice position at the table.

Would the chairs fly . . . would taunts such as, “Ikea, how gauche” be levied around the table, whispered in receptive, back-stabbing ears . . . Well, we had none of that at this decidedly non-partisan, non-political affair. Chairs of all shapes and sizes were brought in and placed in nothing resembling a hierarchy of any sort.

Couples were encouraged to un-couple and solo guests slipped right in between and a damn decent time had by all, with or without the chairs. Three cheers for the chairs and all that brought them along!!!

And let’s not forget that other event. Yes, the dinner leading up to November’s wild night, which was, a night at Carole’s—chairs included and seating somewhat regulated—and no dancing allowed. Humbug.

Pork seems to rule at these affairs. Could be that we are all pigs! Capitalist pigs of . . . no, never mind, let’s just say we seem to know and savor the swine. The big difference between the last two piggies seems to be the time allotted to the cooking process. Carole’s piece of pork baked for just about four hours, while Karl und Karin’s was given the luxury of cooking away for nearly if not more than ten hours. Both of them were yummy.

Socialist (or is that Communist) Origins of the Potluck

Our Credo is “the people make the meal, not the meal makes the people” (we need a new propaganda writer) and the people who made this meal, for the people, are:

Comrade Carole, who toiled in the earth to bring forth the people’s butternut squash. A warm savory soup of squished squash, tempered by organic free range chicken broth and other assorted herbs and spices.

Hideo and Carmine on salad & bread and samba or tango or something. They moved their feet. Wait, Hideo made the salad and Carmine did the dancing, or something like that. Salad is good, but dancing is suspect and perhaps a little too “bourgeois”. It looked less like a nice goose-step and more like a free-form-expressionistic kind of thing. Can this go with Salad? And the bread . . . if we’d had bread like this—from Tartine—in the old days, those long lines would have been worth the wait.

The Ten-hour Pork Roast from the kitchen of Karl & Karin deserves our attention. Cooked, baked or broiled—however it was conceived and executed(!)—sublime and yet, not suspect for trying too hard to be better than any other pork roast. Would you dare to make a better pork roast than Stalin. Never. And this Pork Roast went to market and got all eaten up.

Karl also came up with a zillion bottles of wine and water . . . must have went shopping down at the commie commisary for all those nice western labels. Hmmmm. Suspect, but good.

And owing to all those good wines and free spirits, the dance floor, or what became the dance floor, in Karl’s immaculate photo studio-cum-dining salon, was all spins and twists and visions of Cuba on a hot summer’s night, Castro out on the floor, gettin’ down . . .

Speaking of elitist, bourgeois, and tasty, but with a just a hint of the people’s cause in it, Corrinne made Chocolate Sandwiches. Imagine decadent chocolate encased in bread. How ingenious and what better way to bring the classes together. You can have your chocolate and
give the people (don’t forget to toss in a lovely dessert wine) their bread. We salute Corrinne and her dessert of the people.

Always behind our great leaders a nefarious figure lurks. Someone “in the kitchen,” so to speak, to plate and slice and spice (the new Cheney Cookbook) and generally know what’s going on. Someone who is not afraid to use a knife if he must, or knows how to brown the bread. That someone would be Dan, otherwise known as Dan the Bean man—the almost silent figure behind the Pork, the Beans, the Dessert, the nuances of a glaze or the setting of a table. A dark figure of a man, who mixes well on both sides of the dining experience.

Dishes by Ikea—the people’s choice for low-cost dinner ware.

Organic for the Masses

Just a note: the latest crop of POPE CREEK RANCH olive oil certified organic has just been pressed or cold pressed and headed for the store of the people, Williams Sonomski, or thereabouts. Find it. Buy it. Support the cause of organic for the masses.

The New Polyester of the People

Carmine and Hideo recently exhibited and sold a few pieces of Anagama (wood) fired pottery at Rayon Vert.

Movie Rant

Sure, you can go out and waste—and I mean waste—your money on that new drivel of a flick about that emperor dude, played by that doofus actor, Colin Farrell—but why. Instead, take yourself out to the Bridge Theater on Geary and see a real movie about a real working-class guy, going a little nuts, and losing a few pounds. THE MACHINIST. Check it out for a few good laughs. Sort of.

Happy New Year

Comrades, remember, those who host, are valued the most. The party is looking for the next party host. In January or thereabouts and meanwhile, enjoy your capitalist pleasures.

*Otherwise known as the double issue to get a little of Carole’s party on the page.