Food

The Blanc Job

DC’s First Formal Picnic

None Great moments in white:

—The White Album
—Billy Idol’s “White Wedding”
—This coming September 4

Get everything starched and pressed for Dîner en Blanc, that combination flash mob/picnic thing out of Paris you may have heard about. They’re taking registration requests now, and opening up the list a week from today.

But just so you know what you’re getting into, here’s a cheat sheet:

It’s BYO table. The idea here: a massive, elegant dinner party where none existed a moment ago. To achieve this, yes, you’ll need to tote your own table and chairs. And real china and glassware. Come to think of it, hire a Sherpa.

You can preorder food. If a picnic basket is just one too many things for you to manage, you can order a basket, preassembled with stuff like cheese and charcuterie, all the way up to shrimp cocktail and lobster salad. Ditto on the champagne. Which seems appropriate.

Oh, and they won’t tell you where it is. You’ll just show up wearing white at a designated meeting spot on September 4, and then maybe walk, maybe Metro, maybe get bussed to the actual dinner.

It’s probably not on the South Lawn.

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