Partying at the Inner Cirlcle with descendants of Transfatsylvania

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Originally uploaded by nycmayorsoffice

Last weekend, the healthiness of  food in New York City was on stage so to speak as Mayor Mike Bloomberg was portrayed as  a descendant of a line of vampires from "Transfatsylvania."

It was all happening at the Inner Circle Show - a tradition that began in 1923 of journalists roasting New York City mayors and other influencers via multi-act musical theatre satire.  When our dear friend @francarpentier brought us to the dress rehearsal (and hooked up seats in the first two rows smack in the middle!), she described how in 2007, the show famously moved  then Mayor Rudy Guliani to dress in drag.

This year, songs poked fun at Mayor B's ban on transfat and his more recent efforts aimed at reducing our salt intake.  We were crying from laughter as an elegant Melissa Russo (co-anchor of WNBC's Saturday evening show) dressed in a white sequence ball gown and a salt shaker cap strapped on her head, alongside Andrew Siff (WNBC-TV reporter) as Sanitation Commissioner John J. Doherty, sang about wanting to eat what they want and argued that salt was necessary to keep the snow off the streets.
The song "Sodium" was to the tune of Elvis Costello's "Alison".  Here's an excerpt from the chorus (1:06):

Sodium

He stole the flavor from our food

Sodium

And now we're screwed,

By this rich dude.

That's really rude.

He spoiled our food!

The Saturday night event was a black-tie dinner priced at $500 - $750 per person but the dress rehearsal we attended is actually free (though tickets are required) and attracts many of the movers and shakers who start lining up for a good seat three hours before the show.  We were pleased to sit next to Laurie Griffith, food writer and contributor to Ten: All the Foods We Love among other projects, and to nosh on delicious desserts from Bonnie Tandy Leblang, who pens the nationally syndicated column, Supermarket Sampler and reviews culinary products for Bite of the Best  following her stints with Parade, Better Homes & Gardens and ABC's "Good Morning America."

In all the excitement, we forgot to take any photos from the rehearsal, but are including one taken from Bloomberg's FlickR stream of the Saturday night show. Watch video here. Gothamist has a nice recap and describes the anticipation of the cast of Staten Island for fisting pumps with the Mayor.

The event, held at Midtown's New York Hilton, raises money for dozens of causes, such as the Coalition for the Homeless, the Museum of the City of New York and the American Heart Association.

Thank you, Fran, for another lovely time and the rare opportunity to see journalists turn the attention onto themselves.  Our perspectives about the people with whom we collaborate on the issues and trends that affect our clients are forever evolved.  And for the record- we love you Bloomberg!