Saturday, August 31, 2013

RBBB PIE CAR 2

Circus pie car serves everything but pie


John Schultz, QUAD-CITY TIMES
Kelli Argott, a member of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus from Syracuse, N.Y., hangs out the door of the pie car, where performers
eat their meals.
From:  qctimes.com
By Bill Wundram
Aug 30, 2013
ABOARD THE PIE CAR  On this day, circus performers will be gnawing on ears of sweet corn, Polish sausage, sauerkraut and mashed potatoes in the pie car. They need stick-to-your ribs food if they are jumping and tumbling and getting lions and tigers to do tricks.
We’re astonished to be guests in the pie car of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Outsiders normally are banned.
“Pie car” is a crazy name for a rolling railroad restaurant coach where food is served daily to circus performers … menus for 16 different cultures from around the world, prepared by five cooks.
“You are the only outsider ever invited to dine in our railroad pie car,” says Emily Ritter, a national coordinator for Ringling, which is making its traditional Labor Day weekend run at the iWireless Center in Moline. “You are a rarity.”
 
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Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus chef Matt Loory delivers plates of shrimp pasta to performers in the pie car of the circus train.
We had rumbled along a dirt access road, not far from where the old International Harvester Farmall Works once turned out tractors in Rock Island, to find the pie car. In the hot sun was a shiny, silvery string of passenger train coaches parked on a shabby siding. All coaches — with the blue Ringling logo — were numbered; we were on our way to car number 181.
We climb aboard, passing a shiny chrome buffet line where performers fill their china plates.
“Greetings,” says Kelli Argott, a clown with a blond poofy wig and superb clown makeup. Alongside was her husband, Wages, whose exhausting job is to lead the Ringling band. My wife sits with them while I share a booth with Paulo DeSantos, a Brazilian clown.
We expect chips and dip. But Matt Loory, chef of the pie car, says: “For you, we have a special dinner.”
read more:
http://qctimes.com/news/opinion/editorial/columnists/bill-wundram/circus-pie-car-serves-everything-but-pie/article_2673f705-c1ca-574e-94d6-2058f024aa9d.html

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