Dinner Party, Thursday March ....Something
Since other people (see below links) have talked about the dinner party itself, I'll focus on the making of the dinner party.
To cut to the end, the moral of this story is that you should never leave two Mawrters in the same room. This is a reoccuring moral, however. It's like leaving two Mawrters alone with an open window. It's just a Bad Idea.
But I guess this moral only holds water if the goal is to keep people away from food.
See, when you leave other people alone, they come up with fun things to do. Like, go to the movies. Something enjoyable, something not necessarily difficult. You leave two Mawrters in the same room and they come up with grand schemes to challenge themselves. It's just a fact of life. This is the basis of the dinner party.
So you've left two Mawrters in the same room. The next thing you want to make sure is you don't give us a cookbook. Or a kitchen. Taking away the kitchen is a good plan. And don't give us sugar. Or make us laugh or enjoy your company. In fact, just don't give us friends period. Giving us friends only makes us want to do things for them.
It is traditional in New Zealand culture to have a potluck. In fact, many people I know (not me), have been to potlucks already. This is a bad thing. See, knowing this little tidbit put the thought in my little head that a group social gathering with food would be a good idea for 'our' flat. And when I say food, I mean lots of food. I think I was really hungry when I proposed this idea to Anjali.
We decided a potluck would be too easy. But hosting a dinner party -ourselves-....now that is both challenging and fun! Grand planning and stupid doodles ensued. I thought it would be fantastic for us to have a Pirate Ninja themed party, or at least a But Why Is The Rum Gone? party. But Anjali is far wiser than I, and so grand plans for a Pirate Themed Extraganza were put aside in favor of a Formal Affair. We knew it was possible when it came to our attention that certain folks had formal clothes with them and basically no chance to wear them. The possibility that other people had fancy outfits was considered.
We in no way shape or form decided to have a formal party because we wanted to see menz looking sharp. But, well, we are Mawrters.
We decided on a guest list (namely, Flat J/K, but also some other people, coming to a total of 13 people or so). We consulted the cookbook and our mothers. I went OCD on poor Anjali and made about fifty different lists...for menus, for supplies, for possible costs, for the number of meat-lovers vs. veggies....it was quite insane. We bought things from the Farmer's Market and Countdown, etc, including a sparkly new pie pan.
Things we learned:1. Pie crust is NOT to be kneaded. Also, for my mother's recipe, you need wax paper to do the rolling. Or Al.
2. It is not necessarily a good idea to have over half of your items for a large dinner party to fall into the category of "Hey, this might taste good...we'll just toss something together!" Sometimes this is good, like in the case of the chicken. Sometimes this is bad, in the case of the sad little marrow pie I tried to make.
3. Starving yourself on the day of a big party is a bad idea. Also, sleep is probably important.
4. The veggie cutter likes Mawrter fingers way too much. But blood adds flavor to carrots...right?
That being said, it was insanely fun. Anjali and I definitely leveled up. +10 cooking experience, you gain Dinner Party skill...or something. And knowing what I know now I would definitely do it again. I don't have many chances to prance around in my Domokun shirt and beach shorts, singing along to Dar Williams while making mass amounts of food. Not to mention having so many people together in one room was a blast. Sadly, I think the cooks were too exhausted to do much more than slump down and get drunk.
Come to think of it, despite allllllll the work that Anjali and I put into the dinner party, I definitely think one of the big highlights for me at least was the pseudo-bartending contest that certain people had going on.
Sadly, I think I'm now addicted to white russians.
Oh, and just for shits and giggles, here's a list of what we made. I can't remember -specifically- what everything was called, so feel free to snerk at my creative titles.
Garlic Bread
Salad Thingy aka Lettuce In A Bowl
Guac (actually, Dan made this....need to remember to put avacados in his hands more often)
Honey Chicken Wings
Red Wine, Plum and Beef (which, um, didn't come out so terribly well....but wow was it -purple-)
Carrot Dish of Scrumptiousness
Mashed Ranch Taters
Lentil & Rice Dish of Delicious
Gone-In-60-Seconds Spinach Cheese Bake
Marrow...Pie...Thingy
Granny's Apple Pie
posted by Hoot @ 9:29 PM
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