PORKTOPIA!

We were on the set of a foodies' porn movie, albeit a very upscale foodies' porn movie sporting a faux county fair theme being shot in the cavernous National Building Museum in Washington, DC - a building better suited to a Cirque du Soleil show than a state fair - and starring such heavyweight veterans as Thomas Keller, Daniel Boulud, Gary Danko, Joachim Splichal, Patrick O'Connell, Doug Keane, Todd Gray, and every other USA Relais & Chateau chef members, with the exception of Jean-Georges Vongrichten and Charlie Palmer. Both were no-shows, although Palmer's booth was up and running, manned by his capable chefs. Jean-George wasn't there at all, for whatever reason. There was an empty booth there with his name on it, looking for all the world like the M&M clause in his rider was not fulfilled.

The mis-en-scene: a crowd of predominantly "fashionable" European Relais & Gourmand members attempting their country/western best to get into The Spirit of the Event. There were popcorn stands and cotton candy and Budweisers. There were straw hats handed out at the door. There was a mother/daughter country music team and their band doing god awful versions of "Angels from Montgomery" and "Poor, Poor Pitiful Me" - two songs that are nearly impossible to screw up as a country music band. They even hired a square dance caller to get the Europeans into The Spirit of the Event, and to teach them line-dancing - which, as one might imagine, went over like the proverbial lead dirigible.

And yet, somehow, it all worked. A good time was had by most attendees, I think, myself included. It's hard not to get a little giddy when the room is full of gracious, friendly celebrities, beautiful food, good looking women, fashionable European hospitality professionals and plenty to drink. You'd have to be a complete boob not to get a bit light-headed.

The event was hosted by Patrick O'Connell, Executive Chef/Proprietor of the four star Inn at Little Washington, and for all I know the state fair idea was entirely his. He's a warm, gracious man, but sartorial restraint is not known as his forte. (His cooks' uniforms are cheetah print chef pants, if that gives you an idea.) He gave a speech on the balcony at the beginning of the event, thanking all attendees and chefs and providers; and he was brief about it, which was very warm and gracious of him.

Group photos of all the chefs, posing in two rows on a picnic bench, were taken just before the guests arrived. Daniel Boulud, heretofore unseen, flew in just seconds before the flash, rolling up the sleeves of his chef's whites. Now that, my friends, is a professional!

Speaking with Gary Danko before the event, I reminded him that we had once worked together years before, at an event at the Ritz-Carlton San Juan. Wiithout missing a beat he immediately asked me where I was now. When I replied that I had left The Floor to work for a private company, he sighed that sly, Danko sigh, and said, "All the sommeliers are being put out to pasture." He's a funny guy. The last time I'd seen him he'd sported a pencil-thin William Powell moustache, and I neglected to tell him that I kind of missed it on him. I gave him a glass of wine and never saw him without one for the remainder of the event. The man knows how to enjoy himself, I do believe.

As for the food, there was not one item there that I'd kick out of bed for eating crackers (and keep in mind that this was a tasting for several hundred people). Joachim Splichal found a way to take what has quickly become a cliche, Kobe beef short ribs with shaved black truffle, and make me remember why not everybody is a Chef. Doug Keane, of Cyrus in Healdsburg, CA, made a Thai marinated lobster that made me fall in love with lobster again.

And I finally got a chance to sample Thomas Keller's infamous cornet of salmon tartare, an appetizer that has the distinction of being the only food item I have been reading about for 15 years that I had yet to eat. Everything I had heard about it was true. It's one of the single best things I've ever put into my mouth. No wonder the guy has been making it for 20 years.

I got the chance to speak with Keller before the thing got going and, rather than genuflect, I asked him what it takes to be a member of Relais & Chateaux. There were dues to be a member, he said, and I mentioned that's probably why more American restaurants aren't members, that they felt they didn't get their money's worth from membership. He replied that it wasn't about the money for him, it was about what it stood for, the benchmark of quality it represented -- about what it meant to him as a young cook.

I've met quite a few famous people in my restaurant career, and most of them gave me the feeling as we spoke that they were looking for the next person to talk to, someone they'd rather be talking to, but not Keller. I wasn't anybody to him, I wasn't somebody in the press with which he had to stay on message. Keller looked me directly in the eye and spoke with me as if we had been doing it all night. All the things I had read about the famous Keller integrity came through in those few minutes. I was definitely drinking the Kool-Aid.

Later in the evening I saw him running around the room, passing trays of food, like a giddy waiter happy to show off his wares. That's when I said to myself, you know, Thomas Keller is pretty fucking cool.

But the money shot had to be Daniel Boulud's groaning, over the top, three table display of the Art of Charcuterie. For a charcuterie nutjob like myself, it was heaven. He must have had 30 different items, from head cheese to rabbit terrine to saucisson sec to Bayonne ham and all manner of pates, with mustards and cornichons and pickled pearl onions in apothecary jars with little wooden tongs. The centerpiece was a small, barren tree with sausages hanging from it, which I think will be my Christmas tree this year. I immediately dubbed it Porktopia. It took me three passes of heaped plates to sample everything available, and I did the head cheese twice. It was that good. Every white chefs coat in the room was crowded around Boulud's station by the end of the night.

Then we packed up our straw hats and our remaining few bottles of wine and went home. As I was leaving I thought to myself, there are worse ways to spend a Sunday night.