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To indulge in a lil’ foodie free association, the bit of information that keeps bobbling brightest to me in the seas of prose about the Conrad Black trial is the now-famous dinner Black hosted for his wife at New York’s La Grenouille. The surprise 2000 birthday dinner for 80 is cited in almost every article, along with the Blacks’ two-week trip to Bora Bora, as primo examples of Black’s extravagance and “kleptocratic” mindset. Prosecutors claim that the party, for which Black paid $20,000 and Hollinger the remaning $42,870, “was a social occasion with little, if any, business purpose.” Donald Trump, one of the guests, is expected to testify on Black’s behalf to the event’s write-off-a-bility by claiming he was there to talk business (buying the Sun-Times‘ former spot on the Chicago River to build his momument to late midlife masculinity).
