Ray Pride

"Six miles of aisles," too many exhibitors crowed at McCormick Place over this week when you'd talk about the amazing amount of walking. "How's your show?"

The National Restaurant Association's Restaurant Hotel-Motel Show blankets every square foot of the gaily-colored indoor-outdoor carpet of the exhibition halls. From soup to nuts, with stopovers at Bird-B-Gone, Inc. (guess what they can do for your beleaguered establishment by their e-mail: "Nobirds@birdbgone.com") and Blue Fish Furniture or maybe just Wing Hing Noodle and Wong Wing Foods.

Restaurateurs graze for furnishings. Hands move confidently over product: gray-haired men serenely, absentmindedly finger the finishes of specimen salad bars. I imagine a "Wizard of Oz" whirlwind throwing all these tools and tastes and components and cleaners and kneaders together, and the molasses-speed "Koyaanisqatsi" pageant suddenly becomes eight or ten top-of-the-line, filled-to-bursting restaurants. Instead, it's a druggy waltz, a slow-motion version of open outcry: Yes, this, too, is market forces in action.

Nametags start with your first name in 24-point type. You can glad-hand as you are still taking in the fact -- "Uh, Ray!" -- that you are talking to the proprietor of Tel Aviv's Cookie Nook or a beef rancher from South Africa. The 266-page catalog has an index in French, German, Spanish, Italian. Isn't "Cereali, Gia Pronti" so much sweeter than "Ready-to-Serve Cereal"; "Formen fur Eisskulpturen" so much more commanding than "Ice sculpture molds"? Fluent restauranto spoken here.

Digital cameras rest in so many paws, composing personal catalogues, archives, idea theft files. "Cast Aluminum Will Not Rust or Tarnish!" a sign commands; another "Do you have enough ice where you need it?" Snap!

The city's restaurants are filled as well with the sharing and firing of cigars, cigarettes; and backslapping; and grown men high on calling each other "Chef" -- "Ray, this is Chef Hubert, Chef Al, meet Chef Paul." Benefits and gatherings and simple degustation. I tour a few with a couple of New York food magazine types and you can almost hear the distant echo of "Timberrrrrrr!" as business cards flick in the air with deadly aim.

I don't know the pulse of the industry. My pulse feels pretty good after three days of this. Walking off the little bitty samples that turn to big full belly. My show's just fine.

(2000-05-25)

Also by Ray Pride

WOODY OF THE DESERT
"Small Time Crooks" proves Allen needs a vacation.
(2000-05-18)

WHO'S THE KING?
"I am the jerk of real estate and the jerk of ballet."
(2000-05-11)

EYEBALL KICKS
"Getting Away With It, Or: The Further Adventures of the Luckiest Bastard You Ever Saw, Also Starring Richard Lester as the Man Who Knew More Than He Was Asked" (Faber, $27) is a meeting of the minds between Soderbergh and "Hard Day's Night" and "Petulia" director Lester.
(2000-05-04)

PIECES OF TIME
Sometimes a fixation on fashion or decor can smother a story, but Coppola's view of the seventies works.
(2000-05-04)

MOSAIC CODE
(2000-04-27)

EASTERN EASTER
(2000-04-20)

RESTAURANT REVIEW
(2000-04-20)

EYEBALL KICKS
(2000-04-13)

POMO BOHO HOBO
(2000-04-13)

WHERE THE MAGIC IS
(2000-04-13)

EYEBALL KICKS
(2000-04-13)

POMO BOHO HOBO
(2000-04-13)

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