From wetleather@micapeak.com Sun Oct 20 20:32:36 1996
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Date: Sun, 20 Oct 1996 20:30:54 -0700
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From: AnneDwife@aol.com
To: "Northwest Bikers' Social Mailing List" 
Subject: The Party's Over
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X-Comment: Northwest Bikers' Social Mailing List
Status: RO

The last guests just wended their way airportward, the last of the
plasticware
is bagged and ready for the trash, the recyclables are sorted, the leftovers
are bagged, boxed, or foiled, and the dishwasher is busy cleaning the last
of the reusables. The Fourth Annual Wetleather Cookoff has passed from its
enduring state of breathless anticipation, through its all too brief moment
of glory, into history and fond remembrance.

Wetleather's path is marked by the usual detritus; scattered here and there 
around the house are caches of good beer (many thanks to the anonymous donor
responsible for the four-pack of Guinness, and :-Pthpthpthpth to all you 
drunken biker pigs that hunted down Jim's homebrew where I'd carefully
hidden it (I _gotta_ get a lock for that fridge) and drank all but the one
or two (or three, or ...) bottles I managed to snatch back from the
slathering
jaws of death and hide in the other fridge), cakes, mousse, cookies ... not
the usual sort of trash one would expect from the usual sort of biker scum.
(Sooner or later, you're going to figure this out. You cook, you clean up,
you make the whole damn party, we eat and drink and make merry and still
get homebrewed beer and wonderful leftovers. It's a _scam_. But I'll deny I
ever said that.)

Attendees: A whole bunch of people and a really cool dog. (The dog was 
supposed to be a Trick; Carol's thinking about a dog, and I wanted to show
her that the cats and the bird would never stand for it. The dog was an
angel, our tabby (Chanterelle) just stayed in the other room, the fuzzy
kitty (Wombat) sat and glared, and the bird either walked over to beat up
on the dog or just tried to walk over the dog to get to someone eating corn
chips. Yet another failure to demonstrate the Fundamental Problems with
having canine family members.) One unfortunate incident: Rob's daughter
was picking up Wombat when the dog moved, Wombat tried to jump through her
to get away. When last seen, both Wombat and the lovely young lady were
doing well.

Winners:
Some day, I'll take the time to look up which creature in which Lewis
Carroll novel said "Prizes! There MUST be Prizes!". Da Judge's job gets
tougher every year, and every year I'm more thankful _I_ don't have to
do that. Everything was delicious, who woulda thought a biker gang could
cook?

For the category 'blue': Jon Maybell, for "blue boozy raisins".
For The Land of Oz Down Under: Winifred, for her blue mixed fruit pavlova.
For Turn of the Century: Shannon's Pedigreed Sourdough, which is 83 years
old and she's _still_ making people eat it.
For Best Chocolate: Angela Barkes, for French Silk pie. There are leftovers,
so tomorrow, a great number of people in my department are going to consider
taking up riding motorcycles just to be invited to next year's cookoff.

For Best Dessert without Chocolate: 'Cesca, macadamia nut caramel pie.
Seasonally Appropriate Creativity: Since nothing wriggled, crawled, or
squirmed, this one went to Beth for her spice (carrot?) cake.
Finally, for Real Food, Dave Hastings' chili.

For lack of an obvious rule-breaker ("Don't Hurt da Judge"), Substance
Least Resembling Food went to Jim Franklin, for the vast quantities of
really good homebrew (that shouldn't even have been in the judging, see
my whining and lamenting above). Da Judge adds "NOT"; he's been to
Australia and knows that beer _is_ food.

Honorable Mentions went to Jon Maybell's chemically impossible chocolates
(How _does_ he get two ounces of ethanol into a one ounce chocolate?), an
anonymous yellow lentil dish of unknown origin (if you did that, let me
123456798.123456798.123456798.123456798.123456798.123456798.123456798.12
know, we have a prize with your name on it) and to me (blush modestly) for
having both the skill and the unmitigated gall to make edible food out of
Vegemite (ostrich upside down cake with Vegemite sauce, and it was _good_).

Costume prizes went to Angela, for the longest whiskers, and to Wendy, for
the reddest hair-like substance. (For those of you unfortunate or foolish
enough not to have been here, Angela was the most adorable cat, and Wendy
came as Carmen. If you want to know what everybody else wore, you should've
been here.) 

No prize was issued, but Roy and Dee (sp?) ought to have gotten _something_,
for leaving behind the blue cabbage rolls they spent hours making and then
never getting a chance to fry the bananas they got as a substitute. At least
the beer was scrumptious (speaking of beer, if somebody had mentioned we'd
hit the bottom of the first keg, I'd've tapped the second. Then there'd've
been more of the _good_ beer leftover for _me_.)

The form that we sent out to accompany the dishes worked wonderfully, except
for its original purpose. It was _supposed_ to have a line asking for an
ingredient for next year; this year's categories' winners' choices are next
year's categories. You know who you are, email me your suggestions (must be
reasonably available, generally recognized as food, and NO COLORS. Sarah's
neon blue polenta was delicious, and inedible without a blindfold). Remember
that there is to be NO COLLABORATION. If I see garlic, sirloin, and red wine
you're disqualified and it's MY turn again.

If you were here, you know it was _wonderful_. If you weren't, well, nyah
nyah nyah, and be more careful next time (except Bill and Randall, who
showed excellent sense in not riding through a blizzard to eat blue food
and vegemite and assorted desserts. You guys wouldn't have liked all that
cream and butter and chocolate anyway).

The crowd rousted later than usual this morning (Bill not being here), 
'cesca did some emergency shopping and Squido made omelettes, and there
was the usual assortment of breakfast foods (butter, sugar, chocolate...
sounds like breakfast food to _me_). We sent most of them on their way
this morning, then Ellen and Mark hung around for hours and hours (most
likely wondering what was for dinner. (Greek shrimp salad: toss 1 lb
shrimp with 1 T ouzo, 2 T lime juice, and a large pinch of oregano.
Slice 1/4 of a small red onion _paper_ thin, toss with raspberry vinegar
and a pinch of salt. Quarter a half dozen pitted greek olives. Slice two
heads of romaine 3/8 inch thick. Combine 2 T coarse ground prepared mustard,
8 cloves roasted garlic, 1/4 C garlic oil, and 1/4 C vinegar in a blender.
Toss with the greens, add the other ingredients and toss again, serve with
good bread and a very dry wine.) Once we'd fed them, they whisked their
luggage out the door and scurried off to the airport).

When the last guest leaves, the party's _over_. The only cure for the
PostParty'em Blues is to immediately begin planning for the next party.

See you all at the next one,

Martin and Carol ... Adventure Catering
           annedwife@aol.com
Have Dinner                Will Travel