Gourmet for the Masses: The PIN

Many years ago, Pete Ashen founded the Nor-Cal Disaster Institute. We think Barbara Burns might have had something to do with it. That knowledge, however, has been lost to the sands of time. This has very little to do with Gourmet for the Masses. We don’t know why we’re telling this to you, but we’ve heard it so many times we find ourselves repeating it for no apparent reason.

For many years at the Nor-Cal Institute, Parky May, a Disaster Volunteer with the Sacramento Area Chapter, taught a half-day workshop on disaster feeding based on the National "course." These workshops were grounded in the "three P’s" of Disaster Food Service (Pots, Pans and Paperwork). In 1987, Parky decided he’d had enough of that, and with Norma Lauffler, created a one-day workshop on Disaster Food Service. The one-day workshop was unusual because it included a "practicum" where the students prepared and fed dinner to the Insititute participants.

The one-day workshop continued in 1988 and 1989, but it was like watching Murphy Brown going through secretaries: one young idealistic new instructor after another trying and failing to co-teach with Parky. Finally in 1990, in an act of desperation, Marcia Smythe decided to name Jon Frisch, a public health scientist from UC Berkeley, to co-teach the course with Parky. Reasoning that Jon was almost as incorrigible as Parky, he might be able to continue as a co-instructor where others had failed. Marcia, of course, was right. Again. The two have been teaching the course ever since. The course began to take on new directions, with much of the material being rewritten by Jon and Parky in 1991. The practicum also became more interesting, with such exploits as a canoe for a salad bar, ARC Roll sushi, Lee Sapaden on the roof of an ERV/Mardi Gras float throwing beads at the crowd below, and do-it-yourself "S’more-kits". The course continued to focus on basic disaster feeding skills, like making tamales from scratch, fashioning ALL the hors d’oeuvres from baloney, and serving flaming cherries jubilee and Bananas Foster for dessert. A cheesecake or two have also been consumed along the way.

In December 1993, Gourmet for the Masses, as the workshop was then known, went decidedly commercial, as Parky and Jon went to Red Cross National Headquarters with six other experts in Disaster Food Service to work on a "national" version of the course. Betsy Arnette, a training associate at National who was unfortunate enough to be assigned this project, had to come out and monitor Jon and Parky when they gave the course a trial run. Besides being short-sheeted on her first night at Institute, being referred to as "the babysitter", and being thrown into the back of a rickety van to go shopping (a trip very unlike the "death marches" she experienced elsewhere), she seems to have survived the ordeal relatively intact. However, several years later, the damned course is still being referred to as ARC 30XX. But we digress.

In the meantime, Gourmet for the Masses has maintained a life of its own, with a number of related products being flung at an unsuspecting public. In addition to GFTM: the Course and GFTM: the Manual, recent years have seen GFTM: the Apron, GFTM: the Chef’s Coat, and now, GFTM: the Pin. Crafted of fine metal in the Cloisonné style, GFTM: the Pin is truly an exceptional collector’s item that will be the envy of ERV drivers everywhere. The pin presents the logo of Gourmet for the Masses and consists of a white chef’s hat, representing the Disaster Food Service Program. Peeking out from beneath the hat is a mustache representing the mustachioed co-instructors. Emblazoned on the hat is a red cross, representing the American National Red Cross. Coincidence? We think not.

The pin is issued in two forms: a very limited pressing of 19 "engraved first day of issue" pins with the name of the recipient engraved on the back surface, and a limited pressing of 181 unengraved additional pins. No more will be pressed. Right now, anyway. Recipients of the engraved pins are long-time supporters of Gourmet for the Masses and important people we wanted to impress. The unengraved pins will not be sold, but rather are given to individuals the instructors identified as playing an important role in Disaster Food Service. Whining, begging and snivelling will get you everywhere. Pins have been known to be presented to those demonstrating a suitably creative "grovel" unto one or the other (or preferably both) of the instructors. Pictures are hereby solicited of the time Parky had his feet washed . . . or of the diminuitive Red Crosser who hurled herself across the room at the instructors' feet, taking out a good part of the linoleum in the process. . . It is amazing what people will do for a little piece of metal . . .

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