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| Dinner of grilled salmon, farro salad and grilled mixed vegetables Photo courtesy Melissa DeShields |
By Debbie Mitchell
When my friend, Lystra ,first described the Diner en Blanc to me, I quickly labelled it a "foodie flash mob dressed in white." It sounded intriguing, I was curious but needed a first hand report and I got it, thanks to Jeanne-Marie and Melissa.
In this week’s Foodie Friday our guest post is courtesy Jeanne-Marie Hagan and Melissa Deshields food lovers living in Philadelphia who recently attended their first Diner en Blanc.
Just for the record, their original title of today’s post was Two Philly Foodies Take on Diner en Blanc-- a bunch of rules + Prosecco + buying things at the last minute + 1,300 people= a divine dining experience. I think the title says it all. Enjoy!
By Jeanne-Marie Hagan and Melissa DeShieldsJust for the record, their original title of today’s post was Two Philly Foodies Take on Diner en Blanc-- a bunch of rules + Prosecco + buying things at the last minute + 1,300 people= a divine dining experience. I think the title says it all. Enjoy!
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| Melissa and Jeanne-Marie at Diner en Blanc Photo courtesy Melissa DeShields |
Diner en Blanc is a pop-up picnic where everyone is dressed in all white, brings their own chairs, tables, dinner and is led to a secret location for an unforgettable dining experience. The first Diner en Blanc was created 25 years ago in Paris and has now grown worldwide to include several cities in the United States: New York, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Atlantic City, Cincinnati, New Orleans, Las Vegas and San Francisco.
Jeanne-Marie: I can’t remember where I first read about Diner en Blanc but we saw several articles promoting it and I envisioned it as an elegant picnic under the stars with twinkly lights. I signed us up for the waiting list and read all of the “rules”. The amount of restrictions threw me off a bit. We had to agree to bring a table no larger than 32 inches, 2 white chairs, a white trash bag, our own food, a white tablecloth and napkins and cart it all ourselves to a meeting spot and be prepared to walk 15 minutes/take public transportation to the secret picnic location. Oh, and pay $25 per person. In addition, I didn’t like that Diner en Blanc follows “French Royal Court Seating” where men sit on one side of the table and women sit on the other. How prissy. Our group included 3 women and one man. I signed us up anyway but was a little cranky about all of the rules.
Melissa: I have to admit, I initially had a bad attitude about Diner en Blanc and agreed to participate because I didn’t want to be left out of a signature foodie event in my own city. There were a ton of rules about table size, what to wear, what to bring, where to go, where to sit, what time to arrive – you name it there was a rule about it and I generally do my best to break rules. I couldn’t figure out why we would pay money to lug our own table, chairs, table settings, and food and wine (lots of wine) to an event at an undisclosed location with 1,300 of our closest friends.
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| Cheese Board with homemade jams Photo courtesy Melissa DeShields |
Jeanne-Marie: As we got closer to the event and saw the amount of comments, posts and tweets around town regarding the lack of tables and white chairs I quickly went on Amazon and ordered us a roll-up camping table and insulated picnic basket. A week before the picnic we furiously emailed back and forth planning our menu. It would include a cheese course that included homemade jams and pickled vegetables, baguette and crackers, spiced nuts and orange marinated olives. The next course was grilled salmon, faro salad, curry-deviled eggs, and grilled mixed vegetables. Dessert was salted caramel budino. I crazily decided that two days before the picnic was a perfect time to pickle some vegetables for our cheese course. I pickled 4 pints of carrots and beets at 10:00 PM at night.
Melissa: Our friend Wafiyyah also signed up for the event and we were tasked with procuring white chairs. I took a break from work on Wednesday (yes, the day before the event), and we shuffled over to IKEA to snatch up four white folding chairs, easy right? Well, not when 1,300 other people in the same city are thinking the same thing. We ended up snagging four black chairs and, wait for it….3 cans of white spray paint. We hurried home and Wafiyyah painted the chairs in our basement and, wait for it… ran out of paint. She ended up coming back to our house the day of the event to paint another coat with just hours to spare.
Jeanne-Marie: The morning of Diner en Blanc I checked our desserts in the refrigerator and discovered the budino didn’t set- it was soupy. Plan B! Emergency dessert call to Mom and I came home early from work to re-do my dessert.
Melissa: We got a frantic call around 2:00 PM from Wafiyyah that she still couldn’t find a folding table in Philadelphia. Another Plan B! We measured the TV trays in our dining room and all decided that was the best option with 4 hours to go.
Jeanne-Marie: Around 4:00 PM I packed up our picnic baskets and two more totes filled with our food, plates, tablecloth, napkins, silverware, candles, and two centerpieces I made with flowers I bought at Whole Foods. We lined everything up outside for our cab and it looked like we had packed more than I had for two years in the Peace Corps.
Melissa: I started to get a little excited as we counted down the hours until we would make the trek with our super-chic picnic to go. There was a high stress moment when our cab, which was supposed to arrive at 6 PM on the dot, never showed up. Alas, we managed to wave down a cab at the end of our block and then schelp two TV trays, a table, 4 chairs, two picnic baskets and multiple recyclable grocery bags down the street and into the car. We all had an opinion about the fastest route to take to our meeting location that we individually shared with our cab driver, who, probably for the sake of his sanity chose to ignore all of us. The chic-pop-up-picnic-gods were on our side, we arrived at the meet-up location unscathed and with a few minutes to spare..
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| Jeanne-Marie, Melissa, Wafiyyah and Ram, Diner en Blanc 2012 Photo courtesy Melissa DeShields |
Jeanne-Marie: We arrived on time, and checked in with our “leader” and admired everyone’s outfits in our small group of 50 people. I was especially envious of the handcarts other people had to carry their table and chairs (mental note for next year). Our leader lined us up by table number and we were told that a bus would be picking us up. They tricked us! They announced to our group that we were to start walking. To where? We had no idea. Most folks guessed near the Philadelphia Art Museum or the on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway as they are gorgeous sites in Philadelphia. We received some texts from friends who weren’t participating saying they knew where we were headed (they passed by the site and saw the set-up). I wanted it truly to be a surprise and happy that no one spoiled it for us.
As we crossed the street we saw other large groups of people all in white walking towards us – we were getting close! We arrived at the site- Logan Circle, which has a huge fountain in the middle (the selection makes sense- it was designed by a French landscape architect and is a nod to the Place de la Concorde in Paris).
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| Diner en Blanc at Logan Circle Photo courtesy Melissa DeShields |
There was live music greeting us and all of the tables had been mapped out. We were told where to set up and that we would be waving our napkins at precisely 7:30 PM to “start” the event. We began to set up our table and it was so much fun to see how elaborate everyone’s set-up was- candelabra’s, flowers and lace tablecloths. I was also very happy that no one mentioned the court seating and in Philly fashion people sat on whatever side of the table they wanted.
After we stood up and waved our napkins, we drank Prosecco and started on our cheese course. It was fun to see what other goodies our neighbors had brought and of course we had to pop up every 15 minutes and walk around to take pictures of the fountain and 1,300 Philadelphians all dressed in white.
After sparklers, more eating and drinking and picture taking, a DJ started playing dance music and we found our way to the “dance floor” oh, and in the fountain. What a sight to see everyone dancing and having a truly fun time together on a beautiful night in Philadelphia.
Melissa: When it was all said and done this was the best party I’ve ever been to in Philly. Ever.
Melissa and Jeanne-Marie: We’ve already started planning for next year!
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| Melissa and Jeanne-Marie at Diner en Blanc Photo courtesy Melissa DeShields |
TV/Social Media Producer Debbie Mitchell is an Emmy nominated producer who is a member of the Producers Guild of America (PGA) and is currently a member of the James Beard Broadcast and New Media Awards committee. If you are blogger or brand interested in blogger outreach campaigns or a personality interested in television placement follow Debbie Mitchell @TVProducerDeb or contact The Blogger Connection.
More Ready4Air:
Party Bus PhiladelphiasI love the part where you say you are doing this to give back but I would assume by all the comments that is working for you as well. Do you have any more info on this?
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