Dining With The Saints (DWTS)
On Saturday I attended my alma mater's annual fundraiser, Dining With The Saints. This event is not a mere food sampling and go home type event. This is a culinary cornucopia of flavors to overwhelm your senses and swell your belly.
As usual parking was provided at various car parks around the city with free shuttles taking you to and from your vehicles. The layout was different this year with the entrance on Pembroke St. There was a party section and a food section, separated by the bar.
Let me just say I'm not a fan of the new layout for the food. The food section was located under a series of tents and the heat felt like a summer's day in hell under Satan's armpit. People seemed delirious from the heat because they were wondering around in all directions trying to figure out how to use their 3 meat and 2 staples chits.
The staples (sides) lines were ridiculous. I was asking people if it was only one immigration officer working or if the licensing cashier went on lunch. I swear it had a lotto booth there or something….lotto is $15M by the way.
The food I had was delicious. There were level meats. If yuh love yuh beef, pork and lamb it had a whole stable of farm animals dey for you to consume (you savage!). I chose crab stuffed dumplings, a tasty salmon dish from a couple readers of this page (big up allyuh self), kung pow tuna with sides of sweet potato mash and pigeon peas. Some servers were more generous than others with one bloke acting like he getting to take home whatever staples were left over. Thanks for the one baby scoop of sweet potato mash eh soldier. The vegan cake was tremendous.
There were representatives from other schools with food stations. I saw men from QRC, Fatima and Pres...which made me happy because as the gold standard we need to help teach these other schools how to throw a premium food event. There were ministers and captain's of industry showing off their cooking skills and only being a pescatarian stopped me from sampling their meat. That didn't sound right.
When we were finished eating the wife started organizing the table, next thing I know she collecting the plastic bags and stuffing them in her purse. Which is why when she got the "meat sweats" she didn't have her fan to cool herself down because she was saving space for plastic bags to use as garbage bags.
Drinks were free or more accurately, drinks were included in the ticket price. There were a number of drinks stations including a Yellow Tail wine bar. However, this was my first sober fete in a long time. Yuh see, I had a wild night on Friday involving 8 hours of gin, tequila, beer and some questionable decisions.
The entertainment lineup was Ziggy Ranking followed by Prophet Benjamin and headlined by Farmer Nappy. One more rastaman and it woulda be a Redemption concert, although Nappy's claim to being a ras is receding. I was looking in my crockery bag to see if I missed the chit for the sensimilla station.
This is a different CIC than the one I attended. It have no way the Holy Ghost Fathers of my day was allowing any rastaman to sing about smoking the “devil's lettuce” in the courtyard while hailing King Selassie I as the most high in the middle of the College of Immaculate Conception. No way, no how, never happen.
Prophet even started to sing his anti-self love song, yuh know..... the one that starts "You....you, you, you, you....stop...stop j**king". If these mature folks could only understand him they would have clutched their collective pearls. Even the MC Blaze seemed a little shocked and said he felt a little perspnally attacked by Prophet’s lyrics. To his credit Prophet quickly read the room, noting there were kids around and moved on to the next tune in his set.
While the front section seemed to be having a time, personally I don't think this artiste lineup was the best for this stoosh mature crowd, with the exception of Nappy who has the repertoire to entertain any audience.
Once Nappy was finished telling us how he living better than us, it was our cue to leave. Rather than join the crowd waiting at the Shuttle Zone to be taken back to their vehicles, we decided to take a leisurely, scenic stroll to our cars because I mean when last we risked getting robbed and violated in Port of Spain.
DWTS is always a winner. You got level food, drinks, entertainment, parking with shuttles...I mean where else other than Double Palm can you enjoy yourself like that for $400?
TANA