An evening with the Queen of Hearts
Food figures in many ways into the story that the Rev. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll) told in a rowboat to the three daughters of a friend, then published three years later as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The contents of a bottle labelled "DRINK ME" cause her to shrink. A cake with "EAT ME" written on it in currants causes her to grow to tremendous size. Other foods also enter the story -- tea, mushrooms, "beautiful soup", and stolen tarts, to name a few.
Dining Services therefore had plenty to work with in planning its first theme dinner
of the spring, which many agreed equaled and perhaps even surpassed in sheer ambition
the two Harry Potter dinners with which Dining Services has delighted the Skidmore
community in recent years.
More than 1,000 diners were sufficiently adventurous to "fall down the rabbit hole"
(a tunnel fashioned with multi-hued curtains) into a lavishly decorated dining hall
where they could partake of a diverse menu that included prime rib and Yorkshire pudding,
Duchess potatoes, mock turtle soup, meringue mushrooms, and outsized cookies. Interspersed
throughout were representations of such iconic characters as the Cheshire Cat, blue
Caterpillar, and Mock Turtle. Thanks to the generous assistance of the Theater Department鈥檚
costume shop, Dining Services personnel added to the festive spirit by adopting the
key roles of Alice, the White Rabbit, the Queen of Hearts, and the Mad Hatter.
Bonnie Bertrand, supervisor for catering and special events, conceived and organized
the event (and appeared as the Queen of Hearts), but she's quick to credit others,
including Kyleigh Lanzone, assistant supervisor of catering and special events (who
appeared as Alice), and 17 student employees in catering, who took on the challenge
of decorating the hall. 鈥淭hey were fabulous. We couldn鈥檛 have done this without them,鈥�
she says.
Food for the mind was served in the form of posters placed strategically around the
hall that footnoted the meal with succinct references to the Alice story. These were
the work of Elaina Aquila '16, a student in the children's literature course taught
by Catherine Golden, professor of English. Earning Honors Forum credit for her effort,
Aquila also led a short family-friendly, after-dinner program on the Alice story and
Lewis Carroll's penchant for word games.
