Short Takes Short Takes (May 26, 2004)

One hot golfer

It sounds as if retirement is good for former Menlo Park fire Chief Jack Bennett, who took over a troubled fire department in 1985 and turned it around before retiring in 1992.

Current fire Chief Paul Wilson reports the Bennetts are living happily next to the golf course at Hilton Head, South Carolina.

For getting around the golf course, he has a fire-engine red golf cart emblazoned with gold stripes and a sign that says: "Da Chief."

In praise of radicchio

For some, radicchio is merely a bitter, though lovely, touch of purple in the well-ordered salad. For members of the Atherton-based Italian Educational Institute, or IEI, it's a reason to celebrate. Radicchio will be in the antipasto, in the risotto and in the tasca di vitello when the IEI teams up with the Accademia della Cucina Italiana to honor the Italian farmer known for introducing the now-trendy vegetable to America in the early 1990s.

The June 1 celebration honoring Lucio Gomiero at Dal Baffo restaurant in Menlo Park will be attended by the consul general of Italy, Francesco Sciortino, who is based in San Francisco. (Now that's recognition.)

The IEI will follow up its heavenly night of feasting with "A Night in Hell" on June 10. That's when the Dante scholar Robert Harrison, chair of Stanford's department of Italian and French studies, will present his fascinating "tour" of the immortal poet's "Inferno" at Menlo College.

For information log on at www.ItalybytheBay.org.

Everyone loves a limerick

Jack Ringham brought a bit of verse to the otherwise prosaic Atherton City Council meeting last week. His comments on Caltrain's plans to replace diesel engines was in the form of seven rhyming limericks. To wit: "Caltrain plans for electrification/ Would bring Atherton great devastation./ Ugly wires above/ Cut down trees that we love/ Could bring property devaluation."

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