You should subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting AlphaFemme.net!
So, for those of you who don’t follow me on twitter, you may not know that mi’lady and I hosted a party at my flat on Friday night. In the spirit of not caring about my job, I took the afternoon off of work to prepare (just finger foods and cookies, not dinner thank god). It’s the first time I ever took the hosting controls for something of this scale—we had about 40 people come, and people, my flat is microscopic—and it was stressful but SO much fun. I wish I had pictures, but sadly my camera ran out of batteries after approximately one dismally out-of-focus photo.
On the menu:
- ricotta, parmesan, scallion & black pepper stuffed cherry tomatoes
- spinach, pine nuts & feta stuffed baked mushrooms
- mozzarella, basil & tomato skewers, drizzled with olive oil and seasoned with salt & pepper
- baked pepperjack cheese bites (gluten-free)
- vegan cream cheese, garlic & herb dip
- various assorted crackers
- Acme baguette
- various assorted hummus
- cheese platter
For dessert:
- snowball cookies
- triple chocolate cookies
- gluten-free mint red & green M&M cookies
- friends brought cookies too! candy cane sugar cookies, and peanut butter chocolate chip cookie bars
To drink:
- mulled wine (we ended up using 8 bottles of red wine!)
- hot toddies, choice of whiskey or brandy (used a full handle of each)
- pumpkin pie martinis (which were… meh)
- eggnog martinis (which were yum!)
- folks also contributed spiced beer (forget the brand) and prosecco
So, we had an abundance of delectables. I did the dry pantry grocery shopping earlier in the week, and the produce shopping the day of. The cookies were all done several days ahead of time and packed in airtight containers to keep them fresh. And then midday on the day of, I sat down with all my plans and made a comprehensive list of what-to-do-in-what-order-and-when. So it looked something like this:
2pm
Take spinach out of freezer to thaw.
Prepare ricotta filling and put in refrigerator to chill.
Trim and hollow cherry tomatoes.
. . .
6pm
Make cream cheese dip.
. . .
7pm
Prepare ingredients for hot drinks and set aside.
Get dressed.
Preheat oven to 375F.
. . .
7:30pm.
Pop stuffed mushrooms in oven and set timer for 30 mins.
Take stuffed tomatoes and mozzarella skewers out of refrigerator and set out on platter.
There were a lot more directions under each time slot, but that’s just an idea. It was SUCH a good way to plan, because it meant I was left with no ugly surprises or last-minute chaos. I kept pretty much exactly to the schedule. There was a moment of panic around 5:30 when I found out mi’lady wasn’t going to be able to get here until around 7, and she was on playlist duty and still had to put it together so I wouldn’t really be getting any help from her, but that panic subsided when I realized I did, in fact, have it all under control. And she had a legitimate excuse for being held up – it was pissing rain, and she had errands to run (get creme de cacao for the martinis, buy small plates and cups, etc.), so she got a ride from a coworker and was basically at her generous mercy. (Mi’lady also drew a fabulous reindeer for Pin the Red Nose on Rudolf.)
And then the party itself was great fun. We expected to have it go until around midnight and then hit the Mission bars afterward, but some people lingered and we ended up staying in, cleaning up, and dancing to Erykah Badu and then the Nutcracker Suite.
And for about 24 hours I was like “I never want to see the kitchen again” and now it’s Monday evening and I’m at home and I’m all like “hmm, shall I bake some parker rolls? challah? date bread?”






