Fine Dining at the White House
No matter how posh, the best meals at cocktail parties and grand receptions are out of sight but never out of my mind
I love free food. I have found mountains of it at b’nai mitzvahs, holy communions, corporate gatherings, weddings and non-profit annual galas. All of these, of course, charge a “price” for admission, but once inside, the food feels free.
With no discipline nor a plan, the gravitational pull of the center table lands me at its edge. I think I’m hungry. I grab a plate and fill it with low value food or LVF. Unremarkable cheeses and boring crackers. Chips and dip. The obligatory crudités.
Lying adjacent to the cold, bulk items one may find hot, but equally underwhelming choices. Insipid canapés filled with mystery meat. Greasy mini quiches. Soggy spanakopita. Not exactly gourmet offerings, but I don’t care. It may be LVF, but it’s free!
But I do care. Much better food can be found beyond the center table. Far more expensive and therefore “free-er” high value protein or HVP. Lox. Sashimi. Grilled meats. Raw and cooked shellfish. That’s what I love. Though tempted, I’m not willing to submit to a gavage of HVP.
Next time, I tell myself, things will be different! That next time finally came when I joined my wife at my first White House party.
My wife, R², a senate-confirmed presidential appointee, received a highly coveted invitation to the White House Cinco de Mayo celebration. I coveted being her plus one. Once through security, I saw a crowd gathered in a large ballroom at one end of the East Wing. A rope and stationed marines in full dress lined our path to the action.
Once in a good recon position, I braced for the American interpretation of a Cinco de Mayo celebration. To me, it’s as much an American celebration as it may or may not be south of the border.
As I expected, mountains of tortilla chips, gigantic molcajetes (coarse stone bowls) of guacamole, and broad, deep bowls of different types of salsa crowded the center table. A large fondue-style pot filled with the latest “Mexican” food loved only by Americans, “queso” (cheese in Spanish, melted Velveeta in English), elicited oohs and aahs.
The source of this queso enthusiasm came from all the young, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed idealistic foot soldiers — Latino and otherwise — who helped get Obama re-elected. Being young and lacking HVP savvy, they were all about the chips and dip.
I observed them reaching for the under-sized plates, overloading them with LVF. I was reminded of my now suddenly former self, making the same mistakes.
Aside from overlooking HVP, I knew the challenge of chipping guac and salsa from a plate and transporting it into one’s mouth. Such a culinary balancing act always fails, leaving unsightly stains on brand new clothing.
Turning my attention away from the hungry twentysomethings, I followed the aroma of hot HVP. Not quickly spotting the source, my impatience drove me to a nearby bar with no line. The wisdom of the bartender would direct me to the best HVP option with me already armed with a drink.
Bottles of top shelf booze lined the shelves behind the bartender’s head. Four different bottles of beer were on display atop the bar, indicating choices ranging from a light beer to an IPA. Like LVF, the beer was for the young, another expectation factored into the total cost of the event by the White House party planners.
“What are you featuring at today’s event,” I knowingly asked the bartender.
“It’s a Cinco de Mayo party so we are serving regular and frozen margaritas,” he replied.
An ethnocentric cliché and another means to drive down costs. When the young opt for a margarita, they’ll get Cuervo silver if they’re lucky. However, Cuervo 1800 was speaking to me right over the bartender’s left ear.
“Wow, that sounds great. How ‘bout you pour me some of that 1800 in a glass. Two fingers, one cube,” I requested.
The bartender dropped the small talk and promptly tended to my request.
“Hey, barkeep,” I asked his back while he reached for the bottle. “I’m not really in the mood for chips and salsa right now. Is there an alternative?” I asked in a hushed, conspiratorial tone.
“Yeah,” he said. He flicked his head in a direction somewhere to my left. “Over there they’re making tacos (messy) or fajitas (messier) or something like that.”
I thanked him and headed over with top shelf drink in hand hoping to find a third option on a table adjacent to the requisite taco/fajita filling station at a Cinco de Mayo fiesta.
“Can I skip the tortilla and have a few slices of that carne asada,” I asked the fajita man after determining the White House dialed this event down to the tastes of the uninitiated. Understandable, if a bit disappointing.
“Sure. Great idea since we’re using beef tenderloin tonight.” Of course they were.
Carne Asada fajitas sound ordinary. As do tacos. But suddenly beef tenderloin returned the reputation of White House parties, in my mind at least, to their rightful place. That got me wondering if maybe 1800 was in those margaritas. Why not? Even the seemingly ordinary or trendy can hold secrets that occasionally a food detective like me has trouble decoding.
My strategy was set. I had my knowing relationship with the bartender and could get 1800 poured simply by making eye contact accompanied by an ever so slight upward head nod and glass raised a third of the way towards a toast.
My HVP connection knew exactly what I wanted whenever I passed with my plate extended. I kept two token slices of bell pepper on my plate that I never touched. This gave the illusion to anyone who bothered paying attention to me that I never quite finished plate number one. Finally, I had to seek out a peer group with whom I could socialize while R² worked the room.
Occasionally, she’d grab me for an introduction. I made sure to limit conversation with monosyllabic small talk like “Nice to meet you” and “My name is Blaise” after 1800 number three. I filled up on barrel-aged tequila and spicy beef in between my self-imposed scheduled check-ins with R². My first HVP-only free food event lived up to all my expectations.
The Cinco de Mayo fiesta was the perfect warmup for my second surprise invitation. The much posher White House Christmas party. The line to get into the White House was longer and the weather much colder. When R² and I made our way in, we passed the marines, the carpeted stairway to private floors above and entered the same ballroom as we did in May. Everything felt grander this time around. Perhaps the Christmas decorations added a certain gravitas to the affair.
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The center table appeared much larger, a magnet to the misguided and barrier to those who otherwise would stumble onto HVP stations. We passed an empty stage on our left, roped off in velvet. The President may drop in to give a speech and work the line outside the plush, burgundy wire.
The President? I needed to execute my HVP plan and eat. He could wait. I struck fast, weaving my way between people chatting. To my surprise, crowds began to gather near the HVP stations.
Oh no, I thought. Did my plan somehow escape my mind into the population at large? A form of mental osmosis, perhaps?
I didn’t dwell on this thought, choosing to believe the big crowd simply spilled into my sacred space. They knew nothing about HVP, but they also held no plates of LVF. If they suddenly bull rushed the HVP stations, who knows what would be left for me.
Just get to the front of the line!
I reached the first table with a gross of Chesapeake Bay Blue Point oysters artistically embedded in a glacier of snowy ice chips. The plates barely accommodated three oysters. I’d live. With my designated appetizer in hand, I headed over to the bar featuring a California sparkling white. A perfect pairing with oyster.
I parked at the edge of the bar, a makeshift high-top for my glass and elbow as I slurped down the oysters. Washing down the briny delicacy, I left my empty glass and identified my next target: Sauteed lollipop lamb chops at a table with far fewer demanding guests.
Should I switch to a red? Perhaps a Pinot Noir?
Then I remembered sparkling whites pair well with rich (lots of fat) and/or spicy food. I’d stick to the sparkler for the night. 12% alcohol was a safer bet than a 14.5% red.
I darted over and loaded a clean plate with chops, arranging them in a d-P-d pattern to comfortably fit three. With a full meal on my tiny cocktail plate, I wanted to sit in comfort and enjoy this “main course.”
R² mentioned earlier that the entire East Wing was open for this event. I headed into a small room furnished with decorative arts and fine furniture. I had the cozy, quiet room all to myself. Perfect, I thought. A sofa to rest my weary body with an end table for my champagne flute. I felt like the forgotten guest left behind while everyone else retired to the drawing room.
After wolfing down the chops, I heaved myself out of the sofa. At the threshold leading into another room filled with different period pieces, I could see an adjacent third room and a much larger space in the distance. My curiosity led me through both rooms, their well-appointed fine arts invisible to me.
I landed in a mirror image of the ballroom I had left ten minutes earlier laden with lamb chops. This space had all the food, but none of the people. A spillover space into which nobody spilled over except yours truly.
Oh my God, I have entered the HVP promised land.
The idle men and women in black and white standing behind bars and tables would soon repeatedly load my plate with oysters and chops. My personal staff as far as I was concerned.
I grabbed another sparkler and hit the raw bar. Since no one was around, I parked by the oysters, slurped down a quarter dozen then loaded another three on my plate. I polished them off as I walked towards the lamb chops. I would do the same with the chops on my way back to the oysters. Annoyingly small plates and my voraciousness obliged me to stay put in this anti-social horn of plenty.
As my appetite waned, my boredom increased. Yes, HVP was my priority, but I wanted to talk to people. I made one last pass balancing a plate each of oysters and chops on my right hand and forearm with my left holding my last sparkler for the night. I returned to my favorite sofa to eat and maybe take a power nap before mingling in the crowded ballroom.
The socializing began sooner than I expected as a couple sat across from me holding plates covered in LVF.
“Is this your first time at a White House party,” I asked a couple.
“Yes. We were so excited that we could come. Our friend works as a White House staffer and she hooked us up,” replied the awestruck duo.
“Great. Yeah, my wife works in Ag (USDA) and I came as her plus one. But enough about me already, you need another sharpener and a better food strategy,” I announced, freely using polysyllabic words.
“Food strategy?” they nervously replied.
“Oh yeah. You’re eating nothing but chips and dip like you’re at a football tailgate. What you need to do,” I said between bites of my last lamb chop, “is get over there,” pointing towards the fireplace that sat between us and the empty ballroom. I used the lamb chop bone held between my thumb and index finger like an orchestra conductor using a baton.
They quizzically looked at me, a stranger. I waited for an enthusiastic thank you. Instead, they saw a gluttony still life composed of an empty glass, a plate with three empty oyster shells and another with two gnawed bones all arranged on a dark wooden, highly polished end table with nary a nick to be found. Their gaze moved to my right hand still waving around my lamb bone baton.
Finding my company off-putting, they stood up and politely abandoned me as fast as possible.
What was I doing waving around bones, recommending a “food strategy” and referring to a drink as a “sharpener.” That’s as bad as me hailing the bartender with a “Hey barkeep.”
When I arrived at the White House Christmas party, I worried about my HVP strategy osmotically transferring itself from my brain to the crowd at large. Now, I suddenly felt a desperate need to share my secret. I merely wanted some company with whom I was the center of attention.
If everyone ate HVP, we could discuss our thoughts on blue points, the doneness of the lamb chops and the champagne level quality of the California sparkler. How could I bond over what brand of tortilla chips they were serving that night?
Of course, I wasn’t the sole HVP predator. There were others, however none bothered to quantify their haul. I did. Nothing tastes better than a dozen lamb chops, two dozen oysters, and a dozen flutes of a fine California sparkler when it’s on someone else’s dime. The numerical symmetry of that night’s consumption became my HVP motivational mantra.
Twelve, twenty-four, twelve. Twelve, twenty-four, twelve. Twelve, twenty-four, twelve. This will always guide me past the dreaded center table beyond which always lies my beloved HVP.
Rooted stories are for entertainment purposes only and should not be considered as nutritional, health or any other sort of advice.
