Aftermath

Stuffed full o' nodes Day, 2004 didn't turn out quite as i had hoped. I really wanted something in many places and many time zones. Next time I start in the afternoon so our European brethren in noding could share with webcams. In fact, I may have to get a webcam.

But for those of us who participated it was worthwhile. Lucy-S, Braunbeck, Borgo and I set down to a sausage and potato casserole of Borgo's own creation, and mighty tasty it was. We also watched the Cowboy Junkies, This is Spinal Tap and shared in fine conversation and alcohol. So we had fun.

i prepared LordOmar's Stuffed Pork Porcini. I didn't make it exactly he suggested, primarily because i don't own a blender or food processor. I also substituted salsa for tomato sauce. On the other hand, i was close, and what came out was sufficiently tasty that I went back and C!d the recipe. It's a lot of work, but trust me the results were worth it.

Princess LouLou has the webcam humping in Londinium serving Pumpkin and Sweet Potato Soup , spaghetti with rocket, chilli and lemon and Raspberry souffle with poached strawberries and mint pesto. Oy vey! From what i hear, they had great fun too. Which is the whole point.

The invitation

Like many noders, I like to eat. And I like to read. Apparently, some of you like to cook, because every day a new recipe graces New Writeups. Which gave me an idea for a party.

In a pot-luck, it is traditional for each guest to bring a covered dish for all to share. But i wish to add one small qualification. We have a lot, of mouth-watering recipes noded here at e2. I've read the recipes of sneff, peanut, momomom and more with great lust. So each noder (or noder couple, for the attached) shalt bring one dish prepared from a recipe noded here at e2. Beer recipes included, as there must be potable liquids. You print out the page, prepare the noded recipe and come to share delicious food and fellowship on Saturday, November 6, 2004.

I shall host the Columbus, Ohio gathering at ReBiltmore, my quite modest home with the immodest music and movie playback system. There we shall enjoy good video and noder provided vittles. After the party, I intend to hardlink each recipe served.

But I don't want this to be an Ohio gathering. Rather, I want all of us to come together in our respective communities. At the same time, we party in Columbus, I want parties in Cleveland and Cincinnati, New York, London, Brussels and Canberra, one day where we all sit down separately yet together for the breaking of bread. Call it the world's first distributed dinner party. Lucy-S has suggested that we try and set up a webcam so we can view each others parties. I have a cable modem. I'm game.

So Come one, Come all, to share in glad tidings and saturated fat. Hosts please /msg me, and with food links.

Need an idea? See:

Noders attending the ReBiltmore (Ohio) gathering:

Possible gatherings

sneff had to cancel the Sydney meeting. I percieve that my international ambitions will not be met.. fuzzy and blue is looking for interested noders in the Eugene, Oregon area princess loulou is arranging a meeting, with webcam, in her tiny flat in londinium
Right, as per promise, this event is officially off - 4 people do not a noderfeast make. Maybe some other time, eh?


If there is any interest in this venture from Britnoders, K9 and I are happy to volunteer our humble premises in Swindon, Wiltshire for the purpose of this meet.

Ameneties include a spacious kitchen, a large DVD and MP3 collection, plenty of crash space (provided you bring you own sleeping bag), and a nice central location, roughly halfway between East and West England (easy to get to by bus, train or car). Nearby interest points for the weekend traveller are many and varied, not least amongst them Stone Henge, Avebury, Bath Spa, Lacock Abbey and the Bowood estate. Swindon itself is a shithole, but there are a few late pubs if we want to go get rat arsed after dinner.

Let me know via /msg if you are at all interested, and I will post your name below. For the benefit of my peace of mind, I'd rather not live in suspence until the last moment, so if no one expresses interest by October 17 2004 the whole thing is off. If we get even a modest attendee list by that time, the event will be guaranteed and you can RSVP as late as you like.

Preheat your oven...

Having seen the proposed nodermeet I set about asking people where we might be able to hold such an event. booyaa and I live in a tiny flat in a not particulary central location and, worse, given the nature of the meet, it has a spectaculary badly planned kitchen. So our house was the obvious location to avoid for this particular occasion. The weeks passed and no-one proposed a suitable venue and it looked increasingly unlikely that anything would actually happen. Such a great idea I felt should not go to waste, so I blurted into Britnoders that we would host the meet. Given that this was two days before the meet was due to take place most people either couldn't organise themselves at such short notice or had other plans. Especially as this weekend we are celebrating bonfire night. BlackPawn had in fact requested fireworks but in the absence of anywhere safe to use them - not that he appeared to be as bothered as we were at the prospect of putting roman candles on the tarred floor of our roof garden - I made what I hoped would be a suitably festive arrangement. Amidst some russet and red autumn leaves I added, found in the local florists, some fantastic deep orange things that look just like flames.

So, with a bit of dashing about and improvising we managed to gather four noders round a small table in my living room, with food all from 'Serves 6' recipes and two bottles of rather nice white wine and a delicious bottle of Champagne that BlackPawn had been, and I quote, "saving for a special occasion."

Dinner is served

Starter

I wanted to make something with a Thanksgiving flavour so I started off with Pumpkin and Sweet Potato Soup as a concept and proceeded to transform the recipe, until we had a deliciously warming Butternut Squash and Sweet Potato Soup. It went down a treat, so I may node it.

Main Course

For the main course my priority was something that didn't need constant attention. I hate being tied to the cooker while my guests are doing the ice-breaking catch-up session in the living room. Guided by this, I chose a simple pasta recipe. I love pasta with just a little olive oil, garlic, chilli and basil, dusted with some parmesan. So sneff's Spaghettini with rocket, lemon and chilli was the obvious candidate. Unsure as to what an Australian would consider a bunch of rocket, I pinned any possible blame if I misjudged the quantity on our resident Australian. We now know that about twice the amount would probably be right! Oh, and I added a tablespoon of toasted pine nuts as Tiefling has a bit of a thing about them.

Pudding

This was BlackPawn's turn to excel and demonstrate his culinary prowess. Despite my misgivings and frankly desperate attempts to deter him from making something so time consuming and complicated in my ill-equipped kitchen, he was not to be dissuaded. Indeed, he came armed with a remarkable range of kitchen gadgets, just in case. I think I worried him rather when I said on the phone, before he packed, that my kitchen equipment is one exceedingly sharp knife, full stop. Nevertheless we did manage to provide everything he needed and with Tiefling as his faithful sous-chef, he created the divine experience that is Raspberry souffle with poached strawberries and mint pesto. Needless to say, the first toast of the evening was to sneff!

After Dinner Mints

After dinner, when the Glenmorangie came out and the music slowed down, the serious conversations started. No nodermeet is complete without an unfeasibly (or infeasibly? There was some debate as to which form is correct - any answers?) wide range of topics, tackled in extraordinary depth. Noders never cease to amaze me. For instance, Tiefling was enticed to explain why he so loudly snorted when The Da Vinci Code was mentioned. Linguistics on various levels cropped up throughout the evening with BlackPawn regretting the absence of Gritchka as moderator. The Australian political system was compared to the English and French equivalents. During my various soujourns to the kitchen, I am reliably informed, the conversation also covered game theory, prisoner's dilemma and roshambo. Though booyaa says that the guys spent more time trying to explain to him what they were talking about than actually getting a full-throttle discussion going. Later on, I joined in on dyslexia, asperger's syndrome, the eternal question and finally the Right-Left hemisphere: real or malarkey? debate. In the end, when bedtime beckoned, everyone had learned something new.

On Sunday morning, as planned, BlackPawn packed up and got ready to find the secret door into the MI6 building. Tiefling, an exceptional tour guide, humbly offered his services and off they went into the grey, damp London air, leaving a rather quiet house and a pile of washing up ;)

This aftermath writeup brought to you under threat of, well I'm not entirely sure, but BlackPawn said it'd better be done by the time he got home and, come on, he's way bigger than me.

The kitchencam™ was on the go for most of the evening. See: http://booyaa.org/gallery/view_album.php?set_albumName=stuffed though there are not many, I note, of the actual food. BlackPawn will remedy that hopefully very soon :)

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