Hush Supper Club

I announce coming supper dates with a mix of relief and trepidation.  My correspondence with most of you has begun unfailingly with ‘My apologies’ and some tale of snowpocalypse-induced woe.  It’s a relief to know that nature’s torment has lulled, and this Thursday and Friday evening promise wind and rain, but nothing menacingly white.

But so many of you have waited for the next dates that I’m not sure what will become of my email inbox as I sleep.  The seats are few and the waiting list in the hundreds.   In keeping with the spirit of Henry V, I, your humble patience pray.

The new dates:

Thursday, February 25 at 7 PM.  Donation $50

Friday, February 26 at 8 PM.  Donation $50

MENU: Feb 25 and 26

Coming in March, a Celebrity Supper with HUSH’s mama in the role of star chef.    There will be extra dishes and delights.  A decadent menu will be posted soon.

Friday, March 5 at 8 PM.       Donation $75

Saturday, March 6 at 8 PM.   Donation $75

See the Reservations and Menu page to fill out a questionnaire.  PLEASE have EACH member of your party fill out the questionnaire with attached photo before emailing about reservations.  No reservations can be accepted without all completed questionnaires.

My speech was lovingly plagiarized, with a few HUSH references inserted for effect.   Henry V’s monologue on the Feast of St. Crispin’s Day fit like hand in snow mitten for the Inaugural HUSH Supper on February 6.  White mountains of stony frozen water would be traversed by a hearty few in quest of stories and spices.  Feast and oratory I would provide.

Geeta I’s Feast of HUSH Supper Club Speech

This day is called the feast of HUSH Supper Club

He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,

Will stand tip-toe when the day is named,

And rouse him at the name of HUSH.

He that shall live this day, and see old age,

Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours.

And say ‘To-morrow is HUSH Supper Club Day’

Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,

But he’ll remember with advantages

What feats he did that day: then shall our names,

Familiar in his mouth as household words

Geeta the chef, Brandon the server, Manju the line cook,

Be in their flowing cups freshly remember’d.

This story shall the good man teach his son;

And HUSH shall ne’er go by,

From this day to the ending of the world,

But we in it shall be remember’d;

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;

For he today that shares spices with me

Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,

This day shall gentle his condition

And gentlemen in DC now a-bed

Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,

And hold their manhoods cheap whilst any speaks

That dined with us upon HUSH Supper Day.

Alas, the speech was not to be.  The weather gods won the epic battle, and HUSH guests were informed that 22 inches of white wrath had bested the bravest HUSH server.  Our feast was forgone, and Henry V’s glory at the battle of Agincourt was spared mimicry.

Instead of feasts and glory, I was left with kilos of basmati rice and moong beans.  But Shakespeare still had his say.  I joined the Malcolm X Park snowball fight at 16^th and W, NW.  Hundreds of fighters pelted each other as I resurrected the battle of Harfleur:

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;

Or close the wall up with our DC dead.

No one heard me or got the reference…  I missed many marks, avoided the worst of the balls hurling at me, and raised a glass to the feast that wasn’t.

Delayed, but not discouraged.  HUSH will return.

Kenneth Branaugh as Henry V – St. Crispin’s Day

Henry V – St. Crispin’s Day Speech

Blog, blogger, blogging, blah.  Or rather, blah, blah, blah.  What a hideous little sound the tongue creates during its brief journey from ‘bl’ to ‘g’.  Snob that I am, avoiding the term blog has become a lexical sport.  Writing project, website, essay, article, column, memoir.  All these words are fair descriptions of the genres of writing you’ll find on this bl, blo… I’ll get there.

A series of posts arranged by date on the inter-web is called a blog.  But it’s the emotive content of those posts that causes the tongue, or finger, to stutter.  Blogs are routinely mocked as the endlessly inarticulate, emotional outpourings of people unschooled in restraint, decorum, or spell-check.  Not I!  Though I joined the free, convenient blog-world, my aims are classical – research topics of import to my readers, then calmly lead them with clear thoughts and clean language to a better understanding of the Indian landscape.  Emote in private, with dignity and grace.

But then HUSH went live, and people clicked, and a few food bloggers mentioned it, and thousands more clicked, and dozens pleaded for the wondrous prospect of joining little ol’ me in my kitchen, and then it became clear that my lines were being drawn in sand.

So f—k it.  It’s time to talk feelings.  I’m awake, alert, wired, giddy, giggly, and filled with a sense of present purpose that has eluded me for an age.  The sincerity of this week’s response to HUSH has me radiating happy hopes of happy guests.  The coupling of supper and storytelling is almost religious in sacred simplicity.  Yet I lacked the audacity to imagine that more than a few minor acquaintances would entrust me as their guide.

But so many of you have said yes, and I am thrilled.  Who is this ‘I’?  We’ll come to know one another, using stories and spices.  Through this blog, and at my table.

Welcome, welcome, welcome.  I am honored to meet you.