Thanks to one and all who responded to my entertainment query last week. Many good ideas, and many better ideas than what I ended up doing, because I just did not have the balls. Cooking something for a rather diffuse crowd, age and taste-wise, that also had to look like dinner to grad students, and like hors d'oeuvres to everyone else, was a peculiar challeng of the sort I usually enjoy. As it worked out, the first casualty was something that is important to me when I cook, which is at least a vague regional coherence. I don't mean huffing about having things from diff chapters of Foods of France on the table at the same time, but some kind of geographic frame of reference that informs the meal. I would not, for instance, serve my guests vichysoisse followed by bul go ki. (One of the challenges of cooking alongside my family at holiday time is that I cannot usually persuade the relevant members of my familiy to share my strong clear vision, and have either to let that go, or quickly work up a dish in an appropriate idiom. But I digress.)
But I sacrificed all that in the name of meat on a stick. I knew that sate, with a good peanut sauce, would be a solid contender for this elusive meal that is not a meal. But the only other thai app that occurred was spring rolls, and life is too short to do that for this size of crowd. I did beef, chicken and pork, marinated in coconut milk w/ curry powder, a smidge of 5 spice, and some huy fong. They were popular, though cooking them on a big Weber inspired a purchase not twelve hours later, of which more soon. Otherwise, most of the items were things that could be dipped, one way or another. A nice little guacamole with chips, blue cheese dip with the local blue cheese with an ambitious collection of crudite. The only item that did not take off was the shrimp dip with crostini. I had shrimp, but not a viable shrimp/guest ratio for shrimp cocktail, so resolved on a dip for crostini loosely based on an Epicurious proportions of shrimp/mayo, etc, but was too aggressive with the dried chipotles I subbed in for tarragon and made the dip too thin trying to put out the fire.* Desserts were from the lady around the corner. In retrospect, I would not have more than one dip item. It is frustrating to work up a series of appropriate dip/dipee relationships, only to have guests shove crudite into the guacamole, crostini in the blue cheese, and so on. More self-contained things, like the mushroom caps RL mentioned would have been good. Or devils on horseback. If I had to do it again, I'd consider fancying up the hors, and staggering the invite time, and feeding something like a restaurant staff meal to the starving students early. That is probably insane, actually. People did seem to enjoy themselves, which is always good.
*I was intrigued by Rhulman's seafood terrine in his charcuterie book., but thought interlarded salmon, spinach and mushrooms in a seafood mousse was too much. I should have done it in advance. Better yet, a real pate de campagne done in advance, and we have the event in September and it is a picnic, somewhere near Aix.
Evidently, Whole Foods is initiating its entry into the UK by offering free swigs of its 365 Organic Kool-aid to the Observer Food Monthly . It's as if Mr. Wholefoods wrote the thing himself. If the Brits are not going to bitch about bigbox conspicuous consumption foisted on them by a Yank who is a Texan to boot, what will they bitch about? Also, a vegan who sells tons of meat every week? The whole not getting high on your own supply has much to recommend it from a yayo standpoint, but it seems like a dubious position to sell what you refuse to eat. 
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