by Jessica Young, Amateur Guest Blogger from New York, NY
Wok + Wine. NYC loves a good pop-up. The pop-up shop, the pop-up food truck, the pop-up rainstorm….not really but the verbiage is used in local weather reports. So, it should come as no surprise (slight irony) that the pop-up party would indeed, pop up. Leave it to two media and marketing veterans to tap into the zeitgeist and package a social event that exploits both the ephemeral and the exclusive – two precarious ingredients when combined creates a combustible cocktail…and then, the party never dies.
Thus, inherent is the interest in word-of-mouth whispers heralding the innovators, the early adopters, urban professional movers & shakers, the creatives, and those who moonlight as socializers. When all these desirables convene under the pretense of a fleeting experience encapsulating “the sign of our times” what do you do with them? What magical entertaining dynamics shall tantalize?
Let’s check out the stellar stats for Wok + Wine: invitation by application or personal recommendation – check, obscure locale – check, maximum admittance of an intimate forty – check, forty enthused strangers – check, forty bottles of wine to lubricate small talk – check, forty pounds of whole jumbo shrimp – check? Checking out? Nope. Heads, legs, and tails all drenched in GARLICKY, greasy, orangey-red staining al ajillo sauce. Their little beady eyes just minor dots in a sea of slipping and sliding mountainous piles on a center collapsible (for pop-up purposes) communal table. The crowd circles round. Some dive elbows deep in the critters. Some cling to their wine glasses for self preservation – heads are gross! Some concentrate on conversation due to shellfish allergies because hey, it’s hard to pass up a pop-up. At varying levels of embrace for the full-bodied food, the guests perk up and the party livens. Perhaps it’s the alcohol hitting the blood stream. Or, perhaps it’s the novelty of novice beheading and de-legging shrimp that has Mr. Lawyer and Ms. Jewelry Designer chatting it up in the mutual awkwardness of achieving one laborious yet satiating bite. Logical reasoning would infer that serving guests shrimp al ajillo with nothing other than whole (unsliced) loaves of bread as the sole sidekick would be soiree suicide. The smell! Garlic certainly clings to breath and clothes alike. The mess! Throw conventional propriety out the window when shelling shellfish. There’s no pretty method to the madness. The sauce! Bright orange-red splatters incriminate shirts involved in the crustacean carnage. Yet, the party continues. Eventually even the most finicky abandon their wine glasses to get down and dirty.
There’s something about unusual experiences that when shared by a group automatically forms a bond, a commonality. A quintessential “we’re all in this together” situation. Beyond the event naturally garnering an outgoing segment of the population, the forced participation in an activity, especially an activity that pushes the boundaries of comfort for some, creates immediate camaraderie. The ultimate of ice-breakers, inhibitions crumble and connections arise when shrimp shrapnel flies. Make people do something weird together and, guess what, nothing weirder can happen. It takes the focus off of the tendency to be “on point”. Of course, after several glasses of free-flowing wine it’s a slippery slope into the succulent swamp, regardless. A welcome round of limoncello shots and refreshing pineapple slices later, the crowd is rollicking in conversation.
Of course, no ordinary experience would suffice. Although a pop-up draws demand from its time sensitive nature – poof it’s here, poof it’s gone - that in itself would not be enough to placate NYC’s notorious appetite for novelty. Mix in a bit of the unexpected with the ephemeral and the exclusive then ta da memories are made! Guaranteed Mr. Digital Start-Up can put a face to the name of Ms. I’m Wearing A White Shirt he inadvertently sprayed with sauce. Way to spice up the networking/dating/drinking/social scene! Oh, and the shrimp is damn delicious.
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