Our first dinner was a combination housewarming, birthday, and thank-you party. I’d turned 28 that week, and it was only one week since I had moved into my first less-than-temporary home and received my first real paycheck since my life in Glasgow fell apart. I wanted to celebrate these things and also cook a big fancy dinner for everybody who took care of me when I was scraping by. The only other ambition I had for the party was to play, for the first time, Decision Time! (the board game I made for last Wunnanikka during the week I learned that my visa was rejected. It meant a lot to me to finally be able to sit down and play it with friends in my own place.)
Those of you who remember Gracie's will see the obvious influence. Those of you who don't remember Gracies can get free lectures about it by handing me a glass of wine.
Everyone was invited because they’re my friends and I like them, and I think they’re all fascinating. As I peered through my hangover at the mess left after the party, I realized, however, that the guest list had the kind of pedigree that gossip columns and Victorian novels love -- a varied selection of people with jobs, passions, and accomplishments that sounds like a sexy thinktank when you list it out. In light of this, I have decided to host such a dinner once a month, calling it Show and Tell.
Previous Dinners
8/15/2009
The menu:
Otago Supertasty (recipe on request)
Mushroom Soup
Cheesy polenta-cornbred-kinda stuff
Pancakes
Baked plantains
My esteemed guests
The following was written by each guest as we went around the table and introduced ourselves, summer-camp-style
Sara Badiali: [Sara went first and never got a chance to write down her bio. She welds, is obsessed with Christmas, water, and metal, and is from Jersey]
Kaitlyn S Boone: Canadian, 21, baker-by-trade, Americophile. Worked with an axe murderer and made a disaster of the whole situation. Is going on a 3-month trip across the USA starting in October, focusing on the socialogy of the American people as pertaining to regional cuisines. Not entirely sober, and thoroughly enjoying this experience.
www.kissmisskate.com
Brian- the Jersey boy- 20something -lives in Portland now over 4 years. Brian T...
www.thetributegallery.com
Lives to meet and connect others! Lives and loves Old Town Chinatown.
[reccomends] cnrg-portland.org
Carye Bye, dressed as a cow - loves museums - go to the Milwaukie Museum. Hiddenportland.com, wood-cut artist at at www.redbatpress.com, Get Vanessa Renwick's Rich Art doc from the library. Maryhill Museum in Goldendale, WA, Kam Wah Chung Museum in John Day - Road Trip. Red Bat Press
Vernon/Anthony, philosophy reccomends: Carse - Finite and Infinite Games. if you have questions about Nietzsche, Heiddegger or Derrida (or anything else in the philosophy world)
Maggie Nichols: the small brown thing who made the polenta/mushroom thing, had little to say. Illustrator cleaning houses for a living. Likes dinosaurs. Has at work at simplykumquat.com.
Rose: is more than an undisclosed number,
potentially homeless
& without official job.
It's all open to discussion. photos and design.
this computer is confusing. feels like a toy! [Rose was also volunteering enthusiastically at Manor of Art at the time.]
Sarah O: cartoonist bent on world domination... or at least name recognition in my small world on indie comics. About to finish my first graphic novel, "Ivy". I didn't mention this but I'm part of a recently-formed studio of cartoonists, Tranquility Base, whose studio is in the Goldsmith Building downtown, and we'll be hosting First Thursday events soon once we get a couch. saraholeksyk.com
Scott :
Chemist , grew up in Michigan, lived in San Diego, now live in Philly. I work for a large multinational pharmaceutical company and spend a great deal of time drinking with my friends Kate and Sarah on the internet. I started learning silk screening in the evenings and now I make prints for Sarah O.
And this is all [the host] wrote when the computer got to [him]. This is Kate's friend's quote about how sysesthesia impacts her, umm, life...
"sometimes I see the letter p and I think penis and it's purple and it's AMAZING"
7/17/2009
The menu:
Librarian Kale
Curly kale with tahini, lemon and parsley dip.
Risotto ala Haugh
Butternut squash, parmesan and roast garlic risotto
Fromage Derrier Poisson
Salmon filets stuffed with ardrossan and manchego cheeses, bread crumbs, shitaake, oyster, and other exotic mushrooms, roasted with fresh herbs, elephant garlic, and mixed vegetables.
As it was a thank-you dinner and my birthday and all, I did most of the cooking. Were I wealthy enough to do that each month. But I also recall some excellent bean salad that someone brought. (It was truly excellent).
My esteemed guests
The following is an incomplete selection of the guests at the first dinner, chosen for only for how quickly their luminance can be demonstrated. As I said, everyone was stellar. This is just the press-release version.
Phillip J. Pirages -- Phil’s rare book firm specializes in early printing, manuscripts, and fine binding. He’s been in business longer than I've been out of short pant, selling mainly through impeccably-researched catalogues. They’ve handled Gutenberg leaves, rare and extraordinary illustrated manuscripts and leaves, and a dazzling variety of fine binding. The library of one of Phil’s most prominent customers was recently profiled by Wired, items from which can be seen as stage settings for the TED conference.
Carye Bye runs Red Bat Press where she hand-sets type and carves her own block prints. Her most recent book, Hidden Portland: The Musuems, profiles amazing Portland treasures like the private toy museum in the charmingly-illustrated Red Bat fashion.
Timo Forsberg is a transportation manager with the City of Portland, which means that if you've taken a bike route or read a bike map, he probably had something to do with it.
David Abel organizes Spare Room, a traveling series of readings and performances that has been making Portland more erudite and curious for more than a decade. He is also a bookseller, selling under the name of Passages Bookshop. He’s read and performed his writing in Portland, New York, and lord knows where else.
Bengt Halvorsen is the lead singer of The Scree and has a regular column in the Alaska Airlines Inflight magazine, which I think is awesome because he shares seatback space with SkyMall.
A_____ is the drummer for The Scree and runs Apparent, Inc. which makes it possible for homeys to get their bling in 3-D online.
Micaela McGurk is a reformed photographer who will be attending the Sotheby’s MFA research program in London this autumn.
Carreen Stoll is an accomplished ceramicist who was recently profiled in the Oregonian (which did its usual bang-up job when it comes to writing about art and artists).
This is only a small selection of the Smörgåsbord of clever people that came to dinner.
