We’re approaching the first birthday of Food for Thought: A News Cafe. I’m sharing our first birthday card with you, a touching keepsake drawing of me and Kelly by Doug Cushman, friend and author who writes his column from Paris. (Thank you, Doug!)
I hope you’ve clicked here to buy your ticket if you plan to attend our party. We’ve bought hundreds of cups, napkins, plates, battery-powered tea lights and paper lanterns. Although the party is an after-dinner affair, you can count on refreshments.
For example, we’ve ordered 100 cupcakes with fall-colored roses. Plus, Andrea Charroin, our favorite Food Goddess, will prepare some of her most-requested treats, just for us. We’ve ordered wine. We’ve rented a room, the Caldwell Community Center (which I’ll always think of as the old Redding Museum of Art & History). We’ve got twinkle lights and table cloths up the wazoo.
Jim Dyar and his band will play. Alan Phillips is compiling a year-in-review slide show about Food for Thought: A News Cafe.
Benita Epstein (omg-famous, award-winning artist and cartoonist, if you’ve read the New Yorker, you’ve seen her cartoons, and I get all a’twitter when she’s left comments on our site, with her REAL name), and her friend and ours, the talented and beloved Phil Fountain, will hold the first-ever cartoon-off. Party proceeds will benefit two great causes: Shasta Women’s Refuge and People of Progress.
Kelly and I have dedicated this week to preparing some delicious, adorable party favors and name tags for those of you’ve who’ve RSVP’d. (Yes, that’s supposed to be incentive.)
We have our party dresses ready. We’ve roped our families into helping with party central, before, during and after.
With few exceptions, I don’t know when I’ve felt more excited about throwing a party.
I know some of you can’t be there, most notably my sweet son Joe, who saved my life when he created this website 1 year ago after a pipsqueak editor flushed my newspaper career. (I’ll revisit that topic later this week.)
Joe’s in the Czech Republic, and he and wife Marie are keeping their fingers crossed to visit at Christmas, but for sure we’ll miss him and any others of you who can’t make it to the party. But the rest of our Food for Thought: A News Cafe team and their families will be there.
And many of you will be there, too, some of whom were among the original 2,000 readers who joined us that first month. Remember that? And remember this site’s 1-month birthday? What a fun and wild ride this is.
Now there are nearly 16,000 of you. The numbers are growing.
OK, I got a serious hot flash as I typed 16,000. The Caldwell Community Center won’t hold that many people.
Now I’m thinking about my recurring fear of not having enough refreshments for guests. It’s a holdover anxiety from when I catered my neice’s wedding, and we ran out of food, right down to the last garnish. I’m lucky she still speaks to me.
It’s a tale of two entertaining nightmares:
1. We throw a party and only nine people show up.
2. We throw a party and it’s such a crush of people that we run out of food and drink in the first 15 minutes. I always wake up as the fire marshall arrests us.
Yesterday I drove to Cash & Carry in a panic and bought a few hundred more cups, plates and napkins.
Help put my mind at ease. If you know you’re coming, please let us know.
Just click here and fill in the blanks.
We’ll talk soon. Right now I need to make a run to the store for more supplies.
Just in case, I’ll save the receipts.
