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By Root 1141 0

settled on. Matt was also shot down by his top choice. Jordan was thinking about asking a coworker of hers but couldn’t seem to find the right way to do so. In the meantime, we talked about how to set the price for the meal. Through all my months of blogging, I had a good sense of what a small meal for two to four would cost. (Each recipe on my blog included a “Cost Calculator” feature in which I tallied up all the prices of the ingredients used.) But I had no idea how much this elaborate dinner for eight was going to be—and the wines added to the confusion. I hated above all the idea of overcharging guests at a supper club. The cash contribution at Ted and Amy’s supper club and SocialEats was relatively fair, at $35 per head, but the $50 tag at Whisk and Ladle was a little steep. The whole concept of charging guests stank to me of “real” restaurants. However, it was also pretty unavoidable, if the club were to keep throwing dinners regularly. We went with $35 for each SOS guest, which in my estimation would cover the expensive ingredients I was planning to pepper my dishes with—a dollop of American caviar and crème fraîche on the lobster risotto, the lobster itself, the beef cheeks, the pomegranate. Along with some greens, the asparagus salad would have either chunks of avocado or else sauteed portobellos, both pricey items. But I wouldn’t have wanted to do the dinner any other way than ultraluxurious, hoping to set a romantic mood.

Finally, Karol pinned down her “date,” a friend/acquaintance named George, who worked at a bar that she frequented. As for Matt, he was determined to meet the girl of his dreams the weekend before the dinner. That weekend, the Whisk and Ladle Supper Club happened to be hosting a party in their loft. Not a dinner, it was their end-of-season shebang, called the Pink Ball. The exclusive invitation described a dress code of pink and white and promised live bands and DJs, aerial silk-rope dancers, and games like Twister and “musical clothing.” I was allowed to come with only one guest, and since Matt saw it as an opportunity to meet his girl, I brought him along. I’d found a seventies pink-and-white printed dress and wrapped an old brown leather belt around the middle to cinch the waist. Matt bought an old ladies’ pink pullover with snowflake embroidery, put on his roommate’s white track pants, and tossed a pink scarf that I gave him around his neck. I thought we looked pretty amazing.

The party was crowded the minute we arrived. In the kitchen, we snacked on pink cupcakes with pink icing, and trays of homemade raspberry-pomegranate and fresh strawberry ice cream that were melting to a pleasing, sweet sludge. We moved on to the bar area, where Nick and a friend were serving four different pink cocktails with the likes of strawberry-infused vodka and guava nectar. We tried them all.

Before long, the party seemed to have bloated into an all-consuming mass of pastel-clothed bodies. One guy was even running around in nothing more than a pink loincloth. To add to my disorientation, everywhere I turned, I could have sworn that I recognized faces, but not well enough to know how, or from where.

“Are you that ‘don’t eat out’ girl?” a tall, familiar-looking guy asked me.

“How did you know?” I asked. We’d met at Whisk and Ladle once before, he said, “when you were on the swing.”

This explained why I couldn’t place him at first. He was standing beside two friends of his, another Asian guy and a pretty brunette girl, both of whom I didn’t recognize. Matt and I introduced ourselves to them. The girl, Lauren, started asking me about my blog, and I explained the concept while she nodded enthusiastically. She was wearing white jeans and a silky printed tank that hit below the hips. We ended up hanging out with Lauren and her two friends for most of the night, dancing and watching the bands and silk-rope dancers perform, twirling like acrobats from silk sheaths hung from the loft’s ceiling. I could tell that Matt was really into Lauren, so once it got late, I decided to take off alone. The party was in no way