IACP "Intl. Sex" Parties: Media Mixer & Midnight Dinner

When IACP co-chair Ken Rubin was asked Thursday night, at a media mixer held at the Heathman Hotel, if he thought attendees at the culinary confab currently taking place in Portland were "hooking up" like others do at less food-obsessed conventions his reply was vintage Rubin: "Oh yeah, it's an international sex party." IACP President Scott Givot agreed: "it's a food orgy." Although the Heathman media event didn't quite live up to orgy status, the "secret midnight dinner" (aka the "late night reunion of Team Hebberoy") did. The super-exclusive very late supper (entrees didn't start coming out of the wood-fired oven until way after midnight) wasn't so much a return to Naomi Pomeroy's (left, with the Portland Culinary Alliance's new director Andrea Slonecker) and Michael Hebb's former glories (it seemed like they barely noticed each other throughout the dinner), but it did include a sneak peek at the space where coffee roaster/host for the night Caffe Vita is opening its upscale pizza joint Via Tribunali. It also featured a a couple of other cooks in the kitchen besides Hebb: Ned Ludd's Jason French and Spring Hill's Mark Fuller. Making the night even more complete were musical performances by Y La Bamba and Tahoe Jackson who brought the funk into the wee hours of the morn and turned the intimate candle-lit dinner into a late-night dance party. Want to see pics from both parties? Go to Byron Beck's blog to see all the hotness.
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