“I’m not allowed to speak for two hours” I tell Mr NQN.

“I’d pay money to see that” he says laughing.

The Silent Dinner Party is an event that I heard about first on Amy’s Cupcakes and Cornrows blog. Part of Sydney’s Fringe Festival it is run by Australian performance artist Honi Ryan who has staged this event all around the world. This is the first time it has been here in Australia and it promises to be an interesting evening. Each Silent Dinner party is held at a secret location in Sydney’s Inner West. There are three silent dinner parties scheduled for the month of September as part of the festival but they’re proving so popular that new dates have had to be added.

The brief was simple:

“Silent Dinner Parties are a normal dinner party, except it is requested that you, the guests:

1. Please don’t use words or your voice

2. Please don’t read or write

3. Try to make as little noise as possible

4. Stay with it for at least 2 hrs

There is no audience, only participants, as we sit around a dinner table in someone’s Sydney home devouring a 3 course feast, you are guaranteed a grand [silent] giggle”.

Could I do it? Could I not utter a word for 2 hours? Mr NQN doubted it and I must admit I doubted myself. We arrive at the Inner West location and there is a collective of people at the door. “Silent dinner party?” one asks us and they are the last words that we utter for the next two and a half hours. As we walk through the house, we nod and smile at people and everyone shakes hands.  The effect of not being able to speak is immediate as we cannot rely on other cues of communication and as a result everyone waves at each new guest and smiles broadly. In fact my cheeks ache from smiling so much!

Covering the wine labels

There are a couple of groups of friends and interestingly a couple of people that have come by themselves, including Amy. The first half hour starts off a little awkwardly as people nod and smile at each other amidst much nervous laughter at the somewhat deafening silence. Then someone takes a seasoned seaweed leaf and we all dig in. All of the food in this three course dinner is vegetarian and prepared here by Honi and her friendly team. I’d tell you their names but we aren’t allowed to speak and there are no name tags. In fact when people bring wine and water, the labels are covered over with a white sticker and people wearing logos on their tops also have these covered.

Miming conversation

Conversation is through mime and people try to converse to find out where we’re from and what we do for a living. Amusement and laughter reigns as someone asks a girl if the man she is with is her lover via various hip grinding gestures. It turns out he is her father! There are also un PC gestures where people give which country they come from (I shan’t name names! ). I try to guess one guest’s occupation-she gestures that her nose is growing longer so I think she means politician but I’m not entirely sure.  We ascertain who is together and who is married or engaged. The silence is broken at times by the barking and whimpering of the dog who may just be totally confused at the silence.

Vegetable soup

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I know I’m always going on about freshly picked produce and farmer’s markets but what if you could become your own little farmer? Toni from The Veggie Lady who was at the Organic Expo and Green Show this year holds regular classes on how to transform your garden into a bountiful paradise! Firstly, you take a trip to Camden and see Toni’s own garden where you will take the principals from Toni’s garden and learn how to transform your own backyard into a food forest, whether it’s a tiny balcony or a 5 acre property!

You also learn how to divide your garden into zones for entertaining, flowers and vegetable growing, fruit and perennial orchard, and even backyard poultry. Topics covered include placement and layout, plant grouping, garden structures and chicken-keeping. Start the day with home-baked morning tea and enjoy lunch from Toni’s own garden as well as other tasty local gourmet produce. Organic seeds and other garden needs are also for sale.

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In an effort to continue shopping within the small clothing size section, I often have to give away copious amounts of cake. I try a piece of course but the cake has to be quickly snatched out of my hands and shuttled forth to another, less calorie concerned destination. This of course has the added benefit of making me a little popular, although I suspect that if the cake supply dried out, perhaps the popularity might too

I usually try and bring the cakes and baked goods to suitable occasions. I have occasions-a-plenty this September. I have two baby showers, a hen’s night, a birthday and a picnic.  However none of these occasions were quite right to bring along a cake called “Delicious Death”. I can’t imagine a quicker way to bring down the mood for a baby shower or birthday than to haul out a cake called Delicious Death. I imagined people tsking and elbowing each other and whispering “Who invited the freak?”.

The reason why I couldn’t make this for Hallowe’en is because of the reason why this cake was devised. I first saw it on Cakelaw’s delicious site and was immediately drawn to the name-Delicious Death. It was devised by British cake maven and actress Jane Asher for the Agatha Christie 120th anniversary on the 15th of September (yes I am a day late). The recipe was inspired by a passage in one of her Miss Marple books called “A Murder is Announced” in which housekeeper Mitzi bakes it for Dora Bunner’s birthday tea. “‘Impossible to make such a cake. I need for it chocolate and much butter, and sugar and raisins’” she tells her employer.

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