Diner en Blanc

9/6/2014

This dinner, which is more like an event, was started 25 years ago in Paris (where else) and the host wanted all of his guests to wear white so they could be easily identified as having been invited.  This yearly event is now held in 40 cities across the globe, even to Cincinnati!

There are rules for this annual event and pretty much everyone attending follows them, for fear of not being invited again or being kicked out of the club entirely.   So my invitation didn't arrive in the mail (thank goodness), nor am I expecting one in the future.  I don't know about you, but when I go out to dinner, I just want to show up, be served, eat and go home.  Maybe if I were younger, I would find an event such as this exciting, but as I sit here today, I don't. Here are some of the rules:

• You have to be invited by a organizer or a person who has attended a Diner en Blanc in a different city 
• Registration is $35. per person plus a $5.00 membership fee.  The admission fee only gives you access to the event.
• If you want wine you have to order it through Diner en Blanc.  It doesn't matter whether you are going to drink the cheap stuff or a pricier wine.  Basically, you don't brink your own bottle.
• You bring your own food or order a basket from guess - yep Diner en Blanc.  You people are good.  Your meal has to be something eaten with a knife and fork, so no burritos or tacos.
• You must bring your own tables, chairs, plates, silverware, white tablecloth and cloth napkins.
• You must dress only in white and casual attire such as shorts and tennis shoes is discouraged. And we all know that white clothing almost never gets stained!
• Of course you in your brilliant white attire must lug all of your "necessities" on Metro and then on foot.
• If it rains you must show up. If you are a no-show you are kicked out of the club.
• If you break any of the rules you could be: barred from entering the event, this would tick me off,  if I had just hauled a small caravan of necessities with me.

 So if you're still crazing to outdoors with the bugs, throw a blanket on the yard, cover yourself with insect repellant and eat fried chicken from your favorite chicken place!  Oh and did I mention if you eat in your own yard - there is even indoor plumbing!

P