Dinner

On Dec. 16, Municipal Utilities Authority employees, board members, vendors and spouses gathered at Beau Rivage, an upscale Medford restaurant, to enjoy a meal. The cost to township residents: $3,521.10. The annual event, called the employee appreciation dinner, drew 32 people, according to John Manganaro, superintendent of the authority. That works out to $110 per plate. Manganaro defended the expense, saying it was the only time that the authority's five employees, its five board members, family members and vendors had an opportunity to gather together.

The name has been changed to So Rare Restaurant, but for all intents and purposes, the well-known Luchetta's Ristorante in Glenside is still with us. The restaurant's ownership changed several months ago, but everything else remains the same - the unique seven-course, one-price-for-everything meal, the decor, the good food, even one of the chefs who remained behind. For the money, So Rare is hard to beat: Dinner prices range from $15.95 to $19.95 and include everything from appetizer to dessert.

More than 800 people have bought tickets to a dinner to honor slain Police Officer Daniel Faulkner tonight, just hours before supporters of his convicted murderer, Mumia Abu-Jamal, plan to demonstrate outside City Hall. Michael Smerconish, the lawyer/talk-show host who organized the dinner, said those who have paid $100 a ticket to attend include top city and state officials. Among them, he said, are Mayor Rendell, U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, Lt. Gov. Mark Schweiker, District Attorney Lynne Abraham, state Attorney General Mike Fisher, City Controller Jonathan Saidel, a half-dozen City Council members and Police Commissioner John Timoney, who is honorary chairman of the event.

The first time it happened was in the spring. My assistant answered the phone and a woman said: "I am with the State Department's office of protocol. "Vice President Gore and his wife are hosting a dinner for the president of Ukraine. It will be held tomorrow night. We would like to invite Mr. Royko and Mrs. Royko. Do you know if either of them speak Ukrainian?" My assistant said she wasn't sure about the Ukrainian, but my English was OK. "Could you find out please? It is for seating purposes.

Dinner was in danger. A crucial front burner wasn't working, the meat thermometer drew a blank, the skillets wouldn't fit in the oven as planned, and a pot holder caught fire. But as far as Karyn Scher knew, her prize dinner party was proceeding according to plan. Indeed, it was a prize - she'd bid hundreds of dollars for the dinner at a silent auction in the fall to benefit First Person Arts, a Philadelphia not-for-profit that celebrates the many forms of storytelling. Now Scher, a clinical psychologist, and her husband, Eddie Ohlbaum, a Temple University law professor, sat at either end of the dining room table in their Penn Valley home, entertaining 10 friends and feeling quasi-confident that calamity would not strike their kitchen.

Dinner-theater shows are a big thing in town this fall. Two will open tonight, a third will close to make way for a new entry. Babe's Steakhouse wants to bring back the nightclub floor shows of the 1940s, and its first effort opens tonight - Le Jazz Hot, billed as a New Orleans revue. The show will play for six weeks and will be followed by The Roaring Twenties for six weeks and then Hot Chocolate: The Cotton Club Comes to Babe's for another six weeks. Seating for the Friday dinner shows at Babe's, 3400 Aramingo Ave., will be at 7 p.m., and tickets are $50. There will be another show (without dinner)

THE LEVEL of obesity today is unreal and almost unavoidable. If you pick up any magazine, you find two ads for losing weight and staying in shape and then 22 ads for fast-food restaurants, new recipes for holiday dinners, etc. - all of which are fattening. Unfortunately for those of us who like unhealthy food, but try to refrain, there is an alarming amount of fat food out there, especially during the holiday season. And just when I thought our society was becoming a little more health conscious, you come to ask yourself, "How many drive-thru windows do you know of that specialize in foods that are good for your heart?"

We were invited to dinner at Miriam and Jack Paar's house the other night. One of the things I notice about the handful of well-known people I've met is how interesting they are in person. You can usually see how they got there. Jack Paar is as good at the dinner table as he ever was on the air and, as I sat there listening to him, I had this crass, commercial thought. I thought about how much good material he was throwing away on his guests. A director could have taped the dinner and made a show out of it. Which, come to think of it, wouldn't be a bad idea.

As part of its yearly foray into the suburbs, the Academy of Vocal Arts (AVA) Opera Theater came to Centennial Hall at Haverford College to perform Giacomo Puccini's operatic tragedy Madama Butterfly Tuesday and Thursday. There was a pre-performance dinner Tuesday at Merion Cricket Club in Haverford for about 150 attendees. At the dinner with his wife, Mary, was William G. Warden 3d, of Newtown Square, whose grandmother, Helen Corning Warden, began AVA in October 1934. AVA is a training and performing-arts organization for talented young singers, who receive intensive additional training beyond college-level studies.

Paul Steinke loves the city and he's dedicated to making it a better place to live. In his new job as head of the University City District, he's learning to love West Philly even more than he loved Center City, where he spent the past seven years working under Paul Levy at the Center City District. He also loves Indian food, which took us to dinner at Tandoor India on 40th Street. The area, infused with ethnic restaurants - Mexican, Chinese, Thai, Ethiopian and Indian - make lunch and dinner choices a joy, Steinke said.