St. John's College, the school that studies Great Books, and its neighbor the U.S. Naval Academy, the school that studies great sea battles, combine each year for an unlikely triumph - a really great lawn party where the annual croquet match takes a back seat to the elegant picnic food.
Each year, in the spring, the two schools meet on the campus of St. John's - just steps away from the walls that surround the Naval Academy - for a lopsided competition. (St. John's leads in the series, 22-5.)
While it is true that some showed up for the 27th installment of this rivalry on Sunday with a portable chair and a 12-pack of Natty Boh, the official St. John's beer, others, like Annapolitans Karen Kranzer and Lisa Gorun, who's married to a Navy grad, brought such items as a chandelier, Oriental rugs and the family silver - all the better to showcase the smoked salmon, grilled asparagus and champagne.
"We want to set the standard," said Kranzer, who helped plan a menu that also included caviar and deviled eggs. A generator lit the crystal chandelier that hung in the tent where the champagne was served. "There is a lot of competition here."
The competition was close at hand. Barbara Ahr, whose son Daniel and daughter Megan both graduated from the Naval Academy, hired Rhonda Falcon, who owns the Saucy Salamander in Annapolis, to cater the event for more than 100 guests.
When Ahr first attended the croquet match with her midshipman son in 1996, they arrived with champagne and a store-bought hoagie. All these years later, their menu included a smoked salmon layered torte, stuffed snow peas, spanakopita, orange chicken salad in puffed phyllo and shrimp-salad pockets. Plus the required chocolate-dipped strawberries.
"No way I am doing all of this myself," she said.
Dan and Suzanne Clague had a more daunting task: Feed the Naval Academy croquet team. Midshipmen are always hungry, and there always seems to be a lot of them around.
"The key is to get more food than anyone thinks you will need," said Dan Clague, whose son, Patrick, was the Navy croquet team captain, also known as the Imperial Wicket.
Clague, a Navy graduate, was a supply officer on submarines, and that's how he learned to cater a croquet match. "Running out of food on a submarine is very bad."
