Now, though, this is our first time to have a party in this tiny little doll house in Sun City. We've been so nervous about not having enough chairs to sit in, we only invited six people - plus Drake and I for eight. Hopefully, it's going to be a small, but fun party. Fortunately, we don't have any die hard football fans coming who want to agonize over every football play. Drake is moving the small TV into the Arizona room, so everyone can see every play if they are so inclined. The best Super Bowl parties we ever went to were big parties hosted by what would now be called 'foodie' hosts. They were some of our New Orleans friends, and boy, did they know how to cook.
I spent part of today figuring out what food I'm going to make for this party. Of course, there will be too much, because I'm bad at determining exactly how much food I need. 90% of it is going to be made in advance. We are only doing finger food because Drake doesn't want to eat anything that drips or needs a utensil. He's making an exception for the pecan pie. I'm making three kinds of deviled eggs.
When I went to the library today AFTER I WENT TO EXERCISE, I found the Southern Living Cookbook for 2014 - every recipe they published for the entire year. Fortunately, they had a good index and a 'how to make deviled eggs section'. I'm also making a Mexican layered dip - Jean Brandt's recipe out of the St. Paul Blue Cookbook - you can never go wrong with hers. She understands terrible, unmotivated cooks, so her recipes use recognizable ingredients and not too many of them. I'm also going to create my own cheese platter with salami and ham. I found a lot of appetizer recipes that had 20 ingredients and took an hour and a half to make. After I finished laughing, all I could internalize was, "I don't think so." My answer to those recipes is my cream cheese, olive, pastrami spread. Also, I wasn't too proud to ask the other three women to bring something. We'll supply wine and beer and soft drinks. This is a change - used to just buy a couple of cases of champagne - bubbly kicks a party off.
A staple of Superbowl Sunday is the squares game. It's a grid game in which the participants purchase squares and the money is parceled out at the end of each quarter based on the score at that time. You sign your name on your 'squares', then the numbers are drawn at random & filled into the squares. It spices up the party. With 8 people, I figured out that our squares will cost $.25 each, and everyone should buy 12 - that $3.00 per person plus each couple buys a 'couple' square. That's all 100 squares covered at a cost of $6.25 per couple. Shoot, that's cheaper than a cover charge. Drake says you can't force people to play, but I say, "Why not?"
It's always hard to determine what time to start a Super Bowl party. I'm figuring 30 minutes before kickoff. If I refuse to turn on the television before then, I'll get all the hype I'll ever need. The Super Bowl is at a weird time, don't you think? That's what makes serving food so hard. Yes, it's kind of over dinner time, and you can serve some kind of meal at halftime. There are two problems with that approach: Drake's edict of 'no utensils' and the people who really don't like football don't want to miss the halftime show to eat something. I'm not a big half-time show person. At least Katy whatshername won't be doing rap music this year. Who knows? Maybe there will be another boob flash. The bottom line is if you're coming to our party, you'd better fill up on the finger food. I guarantee there will be plenty.
We are having a 'green' party. I'll be using real dishes and cutlery and real wine glasses. I might buy a few plastic cups for the soft drink folks. However, we won't be hauling out the big bag of plates, cups and cutlery to the trash can on Monday. I started using my own real stuff to eat and drink from about 15 years ago. After all, it all goes into the dishwasher. I've also decided no cheesy decorations, centerpieces, or napkins imprinted with footballs. That's just garage sale/goodwill fodder. Think about it....kind of fun to use all that stuff that lives in your cupboards, and a table covered in food is the most attractive thing about any party.
Super Bowl party time here we come. I can hardly wait to see the commercials. Let's root for a close game.
