If there’s one thing I know about hip young people, they love the affectation and attire of the very, very old. Artifacts, sometimes. Last month, The New York Times caught the nation’s attention with “One Part Mr. Peanut, One Part Hipster Chic: The Monocle Returns as a Fashion Accessory.”
I’m not saying Yvette and Andrew Parker are the hippest young professionals I know. They might be. (Yes. They are.)
They chair the ninth Dinner on the Grounds fundraiser May 2 for Our House, which has always been about youth and springtime and yet, seersucker and crepe and “vintage.”
This year Loblolly Creamery, Diamond Bear and South on Main are contributing to the atavism. Loblolly Creamery will be scooping its Backyard Bourbon Praline - bourbon brown sugar ice cream with candied pecans - from a cooler truck hiked up on the curb. South on Main will have on hand a signature cocktail, “Spring Thyme.” (We’re seeing more and more of this - Rock Town Distillery did a couple of specialty mixed drinks for a Downton Abbey-theme fundraiser for AETN in December.) Diamond Bear is going to have a root beer stand.
“Think chalkboard Pinterest chic!” Yvette says.
There’s talk of outdoor games such as Baggo, badminton and croquet.
Think “big old-fashioned yard party,” Andrew says.
Think little-picture, because so much that we adore about the past is in the hard-wrought details. Custom balusters and hand-sewn back stitching, the two-handed handshake and the underhand free-throw, soda phosphates. It wasn’t anything special, our forebears surely thought then, and for convenience, put my soft drink in a plastic bottle with a screw cap, but I think a lot of younger folks recognize some of this is buried treasure.
“It’s doing something different, too. Bringing some style and some culture to what you’re doing,” Yvette says about the scope of the party.
“The idea is to take this young culture … here in Little Rock and introduce it to [these well-established fundraising] events,” Andrew Parker says, which probably means the events should meet the young culture halfway.
Incidentally, Andrew and Yvette are moving to the So-Ma area, gentrification station. They bought a lot and have picked Herron Horton to design their house, which they hope will be much, much more energy efficient than their Hillcrest home. (There’s nothing “vintage” about low R-value.)
The party takes place from 6:30 to 9 p.m. at Terry Mansion (Seventh and Rock streets). Tickets are $150 each and can be bought at tinyurl.com/ lgl9x6j or by calling (501) 374-7383, Extension 228.
COOKING MATTERS
I’m a single man in my 30s. People act surprised when Italk about cooking. Have you eaten a Hungry Man frozen dinner? Give me a chicken breast, green beans and a potato - in the 10 minutes it takes to defrost a civilian MRE, I’ll do better on the stove top.
You feel me?
Then check this out. On Tuesday, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., at a Kroger or Harp’s in Little Rock, North Little Rock, Hot Springs, Fort Smith and Fayetteville, the Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance in coordination with Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry campaign (think Jeff Bridges’ recent stop in the capital city) is hosting grocery store tours. Anyone can learn about shopping on a low budget - unit pricing, in-season produce, nutrition labels and other nexuses where nutrition meets substantial meets low-cost.
Organizer Leslie Bass says she still needs volunteers. Basically, she’ll be giving you a quick lesson, a quick study booklet, and then you’ll be put to work facilitating dialogue among shoppers who take the tours and directing some label comparisons.
One day they’ll engineer a pill that gives us all the calories and nutrients of a square meal, at which point I’ll only hit the grocery store for a four-pour of Virgil’s black cherry cream soda and dried kale crisps.
“We talk about whole grains on the tour, getting more sustenance from the food you’re buying … buying in bulk, cooking in bulk, being able to freeze,” Bass says. Also, “there’s never a right or wrong. Canned is not the enemy. Canned is great. But when you buy things that have been manufactured - the more hands that are on it, the more things are put in it. So if it’s canned, rinse it. Watch the nutrition label.”
Recently Bass was in the store and looked at the sugar in a typical cup of yogurt and found that there’s almost the same sugar in a package of Starburst candies. Yikes!
To find out more, email her at lbass@arhungeralliance.org, or call (501) 399-9999.
THE WHOLE 100 HOLES
I’m not an avid golfer, so when I go out for a round, I take my time. I line up my shot, take a few practice swings, observe etiquette (stand behind the farthest ball from the hole, carry the pin to the crest of the rough, look for an actual latrine).
The Arkansas Pregnancy Resource Center would have me do none of this. It abjures the time-honored protocols of this well-bred gentleman’s sport. They would have me rip and run, putt and scuttle.
How do I know this? Because on April 14 at Pleasant Valley Country Club the center is hosting its third “100 Hole Shoot Out” golf tournament - 100 holes in a single day to raise funds to help women in crisis pregnancies continue their pregnancy.
Now, if you’ve never played golf, you might not realize how rushed this is. We have - generously - about 14 hours daylight this time of year. That’s 8 minutes, 24 seconds per hole, if you begin at daybreak. I take longer than that to get back on the fairway after my tee shot. For my money, I’m betting on the guy who uses his putter like a polo mallet and plays the course from his cart.
Robert Neighbors, who has participated the last two years, says the name is tongue-in-cheek. Hardly anyone plays 100. (Props to Joe Lukacs and Nick Meyers, who did.) Each player is asked to raise $1,500.If, as Neighbors does, you ask for a flat donation, you know if you’ve met that goal going into the day. If you want to challenge donors and yourself, you can ask for a quarter or a dollar a hole and see how far you get.
“Some people get nervous it’s $1,500 you have to go ask your friends for.”
(Those who fall short are not turned away.)
“We have it set up where these guys are going out and they can get donations per hole, or I’ve gotten flat donations from friends of mine for just the event in general because I don’t want to try and play a hundred holes in a day.”
The goal this year is $43,000, which will fund the center’s lease for a year. Last year it raised more than $30,000.
To lodge your complaints against the center’s attack on our tectonically slow pastime, call (501) 227-7944, or emailPregnancyLittleRock@gmail.com. Incidentally, that’s the same way to get involved.
Pass along event news or trends you’ve noticed among nonprofits and fundraisers, (501) 378-3574, or bampezzan@arkansasonline.com
High Profile, Pages 35 on 04/06/2014