The Purdue Dinner Series

The Purdue Dinner Series

     Updated 14 March 1998. URL is http://our.tentativetimes.net/opine/dinner.html
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Purdue Dinner Series

Here is the news of the Spring 1998 Purdue Dinner Series

The Cigar Connoisseur’s Soiree

The Fort Wayne Purdue students in Hotel/Restaurant/Tourism management present different dinner parties throughout the year. Bill Robbins really delivered at the Cigar Connoisseur’s Soiree held at the Summit Club in downtown Fort Wayne.

Bill selected a soup made from brie and a soup made of red sweet peppers. The two cream soups were swirled into a yin/yang pattern, dusted with chives and topped with croutons. It was the soup of the year.

The salad included artichoke hearts and endive with fresh, perfectly ripe tomato wedges and a bacon dressing. Raspberry sorbet refreshed our palates. Then the entree, lamb Wyoming, came, done to perfection. The vegetables and rice with red and green peppers turned out perfectly.

Everyone waited breathlessly for Death by Chocolate, a seven layer cake. We were only going to taste it…but soon there was not one crumb left. Not bad work, from a freshman volleyball player who claims he only cooks maccaroni and cheese for himself.

Run to your nearest bookstore and buy Death by Chocolate, a cookbook by chef Marcel DeSonier of Williamsburg, Virginia. The Death by Chocolate cake is almost as good as Otto’s cake recipe

Any former students of Professor John Knight, who directs this program at IU-Purdue-Fort Wayne, can tell you how much they have learned from him. His department is equal to any in the country.

Check around where you live. There may well be a program at your vocational school, junior college or university where you can dine like royalty. If there isn’t, suggest they start one.

News of the Spring ’98 Series

The Student Presentations from IU-Purdue Fort Wayne

The spring ’98 class in Hotel-Restaurant-Tourism Management at IU-Purdue Fort Wayne.

Here’s a brief note on the Spring ’98 Series. This semester we have to phone the person in charge of the dinner to make reservations, and each check has to be made out individually to the correct restaurant. This is different, and a lot of trouble, but the old way of one check to Purdue was trouble for Purdue!

1. Wednesday, March 18, 6:30: An Island Fiesta call (219) 486-7710. Location: Fort Wayne Womens Club atop the Chamber of Commerce Bldg. $25.00 per person.

Sponsor is Pizza Hut. (Many of us try to go to every dinner sponsored by our favorite sponsors, for we know that whatever they sponsor will be superb. I had thought that Pizza Hut would sponsor only pizza, and I was ever so wrong.)

Menu includes wild rice soup, fruit and vegetable waldorf salad, Grilled Island Chicken and Steak Hache with fennel, fancy cut tomato, basil mashed potatoes, California raisin bread and Orange Amaretti. Wines to compliment the meal and cash bar.

2. Wednesday, March 25, 6:30, House of Jazz & Blues on Columbia Street. A Night in Louisiana. $40.00 per person. Call (219) 672-8097.

Listen to jazz while you dine.
Menu includes Shrimp Remoulade, File Gumbo, Blackened Redfish with steamed broccoli, Ham and Shrimp Jumbalaya with New Orleans Hush Puppies, Pecan Torte, wines to complement the dinner and cash bar.

3. Wednesday, April 1, 5:00 p.m. Passionate Evening, $51.45 per couple, Oakwood Inn on Lake Wawasee. (219) 457-5600 or (219) 594-2600.

Sponsored by Specialized Printed Products. The evening includes fine dining, music and a Passion Play.
Menu includes baked potato soup with lentils, field greens salad, lemon sherbet, chicken breast with cheddar mornay sauce, baby carrots/green bean medley, parmesan potato medallions, wheat dinner rolls and The Oakwood Inn’s signature Oak Leaf Desert.

4. Wednesday April 8, 6:30, Spring Evening event, St. James Restaurant in Avilla, $25.00 per person. Call (219) 897-2114 or (219) 986-9083.

Sponsored by Fort Wayne Courtyard by Mariott.
Menu includes house salad, chicken noodle soup, green beans, baked potato, prime rib, warm bread with butter, apple pie and a glass of red wine. Cash bar.

5. Wednesday, April 15, 6:30. "Tax Bawl" at the Summit Club, $35.00 per person. Call (219) 424-5372 or (219) 486-9083.

Sponsored by Fort Wayne Hospitality Association.
Menu includes Crying Onion Soup, Affordable Romaine Lettuce, A Poor Taxpayer’s Surf and Turf, Credit Corn, "Skin You Alive" Potatoes, Withholding Wheat Bread, Espresso Banana Napoleon, and wines to compliment the meal.

6. Wednesday, April 22, Earth Day! 6:30. "Spice of the Earth" at the Fort Wayne Hilton. Call (219) 672-8986.

Sponsor is the Great Harves Bread Company.
Menu includes Roasted Red Pepper and Brie cheese soup medley, crab fritters with spicy lime sauce, beef tenderloin with salsa verde, green beans with shallot butter, roasted Yukon Gold potatoes, fresh Great Harvest loaves and warm apple tart with vanilla ice cream.

7. Wednesday, April 29, 6:30. "Margaritaville" at Carlos O’Kelly’s. $20.00 per person. Phone (219) 483-0080.

Menu includes Tortilla Soup, Southwestern Style Salad, Chicken Breast Asado, Jalapeno cornbread, Mexican Rice and Potatoes, and Fried Ice Cream.

For more information on the dinner series, you can telephone 219-481-6562, or write to
IPFW Dinner Series
Hotel/Restaurant/Tourism Management Program
1202 Coliseum Blvd East
Fort Wayne IN 46805

If you would like to be put on the mailing list for these series, call (219) 481-6562.


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