Jennifer James on the culinary inns & outs of legal London
Yes, it’s that time of year again, and The Insider has been getting into the garden party swing. This year is the first time in living memory when there was a significant risk that I would not attend a single one of them, due to various reasons which, if I were Liz Jones writing for YOU magazine, I might bore you with. You know the kind of thing, feckless other half blah, blah, low self-esteem yadda, yadda, look like a moose with alopecia drone, drone. In fact, having got the hair at least looking OK, I attended the Lincoln’s Inn garden party a few weeks ago and thoroughly enjoyed it.
Stone me!
Having worked at one time in Stone Buildings, I am aware that the lawns are used for garden parties or summer parties of various descriptions, throughout the summer months, some hosted by firms or by Chambers and others by the Inns themselves. There is in addition the legal Charities Garden Party, which raises funds for various charities including ones devoted to caring for legal professionals who are affected by alcohol abuse. This may seem ironic given what goes on at all the others.
Come rain or shine
Garden parties are always a bit of a mixed bag, at least partly due to the risky British summer weather. Mind you, I have been attending garden parties since 2000, so this is my tenth year and I can only recall being “rained off” once. It was at Middle Temple and the usually cavernous hall was filled to bursting with damp lawyers and harassed cocktail waitpersons, who couldn’t get the champers around fast enough and had to put up with a certain amount of barracking, not (of course) from your correspondent who I regret to say was somewhat tipsy and lost a very good, brand-new black pashmina in the mêleè.
Middle ground
Middle Temple garden party is always good fun but tends not to be the wildest of parties, with a good smattering of tiny tots and dowager duchesses (or at least old dears in character). It was one of the funniest scenes in living memory when, in 2000, they hosted a reception for the American Bar Association, which was holding its annual conference over here. The fizz was flowing like the Thames, but the canapés were coming through like the last toothpaste out of the tube, and about as tasty.
Not so happy meal
As such, the sight of a stand serving hot dogs and fries attracted your correspondent and a couple of chums, but disastrous to behold, the waitperson was under strict instructions only to serve such goodies to children. Despite certain aspects of our characters trespassing upon the childlike, none of us could have passed as such. My friend, who shall remain nameless, averred that she had got a child and the waitperson (wise to the guiles of we English lawyers) challenged her to produce the child!
As well as being prepared to perjure herself for a little bit of sausage my friend is a resourceful sort, and she buttonholed a small American child, bribed it with a combination of 10 pence pieces and the adventure of tricking the catering crew, and obtained several hot dogs. Each of these had to be consumed at double speed and of course with her back to any waiter in the vicinity, giving the rest of us the great amusement of hissing “Look out! Two o’ clock!”
Britain’s got talent
Lincoln’s Inn is, by common acclamation, the best for dining; it adopts a very sensible “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” approach and have the Best of British food. Hence there’s always a stall serving strawberries/raspberries and cream, another serving oysters, a roast of beef, a hog roast etc. There are occasional shenanigans with Thai curry et cetera but it’s the bangers and mash that goes down fastest. I must admit, with all that seafood and double cream washed down by Pimms and fizz, I expect one or two dry-cleaning bills are incurred, but touch wood, so far my own Lincoln’s evenings have ended with nothing more distressing than an expensive taxi ride home.
No trifling matter
Inner Temple is generally regarded as the best for louche goings-on, with such trifles as a chocolate fountain and a Limoncello luge, which they had a couple of years ago. The latter sounded fabulous, with mental images of a Cresta run festooned with lemon liqueur. The reality was somewhat more pedestrian; it was a huge block of ice with a sort of tunnel cut through it; Limoncello—which tastes like cold Lemsip—went in one end, one’s glass was put to the other and whoopee ensued.
Nothing up their sleeves?
Gray’s Inn has always rather passed me by; on the one occasion I did attend I found it somewhat uptight, with lots of extremely upright and proper (and sober) types milling about offering one a game of bridge. Since knockout whist is about my limit I made my excuses and left; it probably turned into a no holds barred orgy after I went, but I saw nothing that would keep a Church of England Synod awake. Quite the reverse, in fact.
