Geography Professor Keith Clarke and his gracious wife Margot once again hosted a potluck dinner as an end of year holiday celebration for the Geography Department at their charming and spacious Westside home on Friday, December 6, 2013. Despite the relatively cold weather, close to 100 guests congregated in the Clarke family’s stylish living room, kitchen, and backyard for the feast.
As usual, the unanimous description of the food was “great!” However, the cake that Keith and Margot custom-ordered from a Mesa bakery was the show-stopper. It resembled a globe of Earth, with the continents defined by the icing, and everyone was delighted by slices of geographical dessert which Keith cut along parallels (or something cartographic).
Our Chair, Dar Roberts, generously donated the turkey and a surfeit of wine, and guests were encouraged to donate potluck dishes. Amongst the latter, Jacky Banks brought a vegan cheeseball that got rave reviews, Olaf Menzer brought German pate that was a non-vegan crowd pleaser, Bo Romero’s chili-marinated pork once again received a gold medal, Jose Saleta’s massive donation of “unusually” creamy mashed potatoes hit the spot, whoever made the gravy deserves a special mention, and, suffice it to say, all of the donations were delicious and were dispatched with gusto.
Professor Dan Montello wowed the crowd by making “Christmas flaming mulled wine” (“Feuerzangenbowle” in German – the name translates literally to fire-tongs punch) on the outdoor cooker. Easy – if you can figure out how to turn a cooker on (thanks to Val Norrington for sorting that problem out). “This is a classic German form of mulled wine that uses rum to melt sugar into the wine. It’s very spectacular and is typically done outside in the dark so the flaming sugar lights everything. You will often see this in European Christmas Fairs, and it makes a spectacular centerpiece for a Christmas or New Year Party. The key is to find a sugar cone (also known as a ‘sugar hat’) which is a solid piece of white sugar that you can flame” (source).
All in all, it was a great team effort by and for friends of Geography. Special thanks are in order to all the grad students and staff that helped set up and clean up afterwards, particularly, Crystal Bae, Carlos Baez, Corbin Hodges, Kevin Mwenda, Lumari Pardo-Rodriguez, Jose Saleta, Sarah Shivers, and Kate Voss. And, of course, major thanks to Keith and Margo Clarke for making it all possible in the first place.
The tradition of faculty hosting year-end dinner parties goes back to the 1990s when the Clarke family opened the doors of their (then) Goleta home to Geography personnel on several occasions. The dinners became an annual event during Keith’s reign as Chair from 2001 to 2006, and they then moved to Oliver Chadwick’s bailiwick during his stint as Chair of the Department (2006-2009). Dar Roberts, our current Chair, doesn’t have the space to host the event, but he more than makes up for it by generously contributing to the organization and logistics of this longstanding tradition.
As with our departmental barbecues, these occasions serve to bring the Department together by providing a sort of social glue for our multidisciplinary and multi-cultural personnel. As they say, “A family that plays together stays together.” Of course, they also say that “Families are like fudge – mostly sweet, with a few nuts mixed in.”
Editor’s note: If you took any photos of the event that you care to share, send them to the editor, and they will be posted on our Event Photos page.
Article by Bill Norrington, with thanks to Jose Saleta and Crystal Bae for filling in many of the details.
