No Drunks, No Shop Talk Allowed at Gourmet Repast

--The menu had to “create an orchestration of delicacy and flavor,” said Gary Clauson, executive chef at New York’s Regency Hotel. And why not? The gathering at the Regency of 100 members of Les Amis d’Escoffier Society of New York was in honor of Auguste Escoffier, one of France’s greatest chefs. The menu included a delicate, unpeasantlike borscht, four courses and four wines, served by 10 white-gloved, tuxedoed waiters. Among the culinary rules: People under the influence of liquor were not permitted at table, and no one was to discuss business, religion, politics or social status, since the society is committed “to the art of good living only.” Culinary consultant Eugene Scanlan, in his self-imposed role as critic, expressed both exultation and disappointment. The pates “really talked to me,” he said. Of a red mullet stuffed with a pike mousse: “Beautifully presented.” But of the filet of beef stuffed with oysters and served with whiskey sauce, Scanlan complained that there weren’t enough oysters.

--Mountain climbers William Garner and Randy Starrett returned home from their very own Soviet “summit.” Garner, 36, an independent consultant and Soviet-affairs analyst from Washington, and Starrett, 43, a trial lawyer from suburban Fairfax County, Va., on Aug. 22 conquered the 24,406-foot Pik Pobedy (Victory Peak), the Soviet Union’s second highest mountain, with a group of Soviet climbers. The talk wasn’t of nuclear arms control or “Star Wars,” but certainly the upcoming Reagan-Gorbachev summit in Geneva was on their minds. On the mountaintop, the Americans left a message inside a World War II Soviet artillery shell casing. It read, in part: “We . . . have climbed this mountain to illustrate . . . how much greater value there is in our learning to take risks together than in our continuing to put the world at risk through mutual confrontation.”

--A crowd of 80,000 people was on hand for the annual daredevil leaps from the New River Gorge Bridge in Fayetteville, W. Va. More than 400 parachutists and bunji jumpers--beginners and veterans--dove 876 feet into the New River Gorge, in what was called “controlled terror.” The bunji jumpers are snapped back up by elastic bands before they reach the ground. Bunji jumper Kenneth Rick of Detroit uttered what could have been his last words: “I’m not afraid to die, but I’m afraid of not living.” Not as memorable as Oscar Wilde’s reputed deathbed utterance: “Either the wallpaper goes or I do.”

--Singer Peggy Lee, recovering from double-bypass heart surgery, was moved from intensive care to the cardiac rehabilitation unit at Touro Infirmary, New Orleans. Hospital spokeswoman Suzanne Stewart said that Lee is “progressing real well” and may be released within 10 days.