Last Cloak & Dagger Dinner; A Plea To 'Drop Egos'

Erika Joyce (right) has announced the final Cloak & Dagger dinner, "A Salute to Spring" on Tuesday, May 7 at 7 p.m. "We'll be taking you to the deep South, to the countryside of Spain, to Paris in the spring, to Tokyo, New Orleans, Brazil, and Italy. American pies, BBQ chicken, to falafel and cold ramen, we're throwing the ultimate picnic." The cost is $55 per person, not including gratuity. Seats are of course limited, but Joyce and her crew may add an extra date if there's enough interest. To make a reservation: erikajoyce@rocketmail.com.

This is not just the final Cloak & Dagger, it's Joyce's swansong before she takes off for a sort of world tour. "The next step in my journey is to find the roots of my obsession," she writes on her blog, Vin et Grub.

I'm going to farm and pickle, and jam, and stage, and find the roots to make this picture slightly more vivid. Sweden, Greece, Denmark, Italy, France. And an extended stay in Vietnam. I'll be writing a new blog Not in my Rice Bowl Bitch, which promises to be a little more adult, a little more wry, a little more serious, and a little more unpredictable than Vin et Grub ever was.

But before she goes, she has a message for the Portland restaurant and food world:

From pompous line cooks, to cowards hiding behind their computer screens, the amount of unhealthy competition and sabotage that goes on is disturbing ? We're all in it for one similar reason (this is not to say it's our only reason), that is the love of food. So here's a plea. Let's drop the egos. Let's drop the anonymous craigslist ads bashing incoming chefs from larger cities. Let's drop the nameless comments on Eater Maine and Portland Food Map. Let's stop with the fake reviews on Yelp, Urbanspoon, and OpenTable. Let's cut the shit and do what we're supposed to do. Cook. Create. Let's do our fucking jobs. If you can't do your fucking job, then you should get another one.I hope to find Portland in a better place when I return than when I left it.

As for Chinese Laundry, the dim sum pop-up Joyce and others were launching this spring, plans are in flux. More information about if and when it would happen will be coming soon, Joyce said.

· The Final Cloak & Dagger [V+G]
[Photo: Cloak & Dagger]