Livin' High at a High Price

Inaugural luxury never comes cheaply, but at the Ritz-Carlton hotel on 22nd Street downtown, it's still going to cost a whole lot more this time around.

The hotel is offering "the well-heeled partygoer" a special inauguration weekend for $150,000 -- more than many Americans spend on a house and $50,000 more than the four-night package price in 1997 (which someone actually paid).

"We've had calls internationally," says marketing director John Harper, who expects a customer any day now.

The particulars of such opulence include a $20,000 set of Louis Vuitton luggage, a personal butler who arrives at one's home to pack and ship the necessary gowns and tuxes, and a private jet to take the guest and family (plus any family pets) to and from Washington.

Once at the Ritz-Carlton, there's a personal massage therapist on call round-the-clock, VIP seating at the inaugural parade, tickets to an inaugural ball and a champagne-and-caviar reception for 25, among other perks.

Not that the hotel's several hundred other guests won't get their own little treats. In honor of the president-elect's Lone Star roots -- pronounced ruts -- they'll hear "Streets of Laredo" and "Don't Fence Me In" played on the lobby piano. They'll enjoy nachos with rattlesnake meat in the restaurant bar.

And when they come back after an evening of celebrating, Texas-shaped peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches (George W.'s favorite food) will await them as their bedtime turndown snack.

Who better to ask than culinary historian Thelma Barer-Stein, whose Canadian citizenship renders her impartial and whose authorship of "You Eat What You Are: People, Culture and Food Traditions" qualifies her to provide such analysis?

From Toronto, she considers the question.

"Peanut-butter-and-jelly and bologna-and-cheese are probably sandwiches he took to school," Barer-Stein says. "We like to return to the safety of our youth. It has all those connotations."

As for Bush's top dessert choices? Barer-Stein points out that both have creamy, smooth textures that can be worked around easily in the mouth. "When you eat those kinds of foods, you relax."

Taken together, she says, these foods suggest either that Bush wasn't brought up on a terribly sophisticated cuisine, despite his family legacy, or exactly the opposite -- that he eschewed that cuisine and wanted simple foods as "his own youthful rebellion."

Either way, her conclusions are delectable.

Tied in Knots Over Bow Ties?

Picture this: It's Jan. 20, about 6 p.m. You're a bumble-fingered male who wears a tuxedo rarely or never, and you're standing before the mirror with the clock ticking toward an inaugural ball, and you're almost all ready and looking pretty suave if you do say so yourself, except for this thing dangling from your neck that you just can't seem to set right, and you can feel the panic rising and the looming sense of doom, and now there is no way to avoid the terrifying reality that you have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA HOW TO KNOT YOUR BOW TIE!

But wait! It's Nordstrom to the rescue!

Yes, on inauguration night, men who cannot fathom how to put on a formal black bow tie need only swing by Nordstrom Pentagon City for a complimentary curbside bow-tying service. It's a service born of necessity.

"We really began noticing the demand for this type of service four years ago when groups of men showed up in our men's department looking for help . . . on the evening of the inaugural balls," explains Katherine Evans, a department manager for men's furnishings. "This year, we wanted to be proactive."

In skilled, professional hands, tying a tux bow tie takes only about a minute. According to a spokeswoman, Nordstrom's experts will be at the ready in front of its South Hayes Street entrance from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Lest the store be accused of sexism, runners also will be stationed curbside to dash inside for any last-minute lipstick, hose or jewelry women might need en route to their parties.

Those items, however, will not be complimentary.

-- Susan Levine