Party Food Post-Mortem
Jun. 2nd, 2008 01:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hrjOn the whole, the food planning and execution worked out quite well (from my point of view). The process planning was a little bit behind schedule by 1pm on Sunday, so it was a good thing that ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
aastg and goldenstag showed up vastly early (due to losing access to the invite e-mail in a computer issue) and were promptly put to work chopping and skewering, with other early arrivers similarly being set on-task.
The fruit and vegetable-based canapes were quite a success. Only a fraction of the possible veggie ones got made up -- we did two platters at the beginning with the intent of throwing together more later when they ran out, but there were still a good handful on the platters when we moved on the meal-like food (although there weren't any left over at the end of the evening). So I have bags of vegetable bases left to turn into soup. The meat skewers seemed to be about the right amount, although the mangled (not sliced) beef was just as hard to skewer as I feared (and had a tendency to fall off on the grill). In future, this will be remembered as now not to save work. I vastly over-produced on salads. Only one of the two bowls of green salad and one of the two bowls of grain salad even got broken into, and maybe half the 4-bean salad got eaten. I need to make notes about proportions per person actually consumed for future reference and planning. Fortunately, the leftovers fall nicely into the three categories of "stuff I would normally consume in a week anyway" (green salad, the small amount of unconsumed meat), "stuff that can be frozen for later" (grain salad, extra veggie bases turned into soup), and "stuff that can be disposed of at work" (the "bonus" cake). Much better than being left with large bags of unconsumed potato chips!
The accidental whole-wheat flour in the cake did make it noticably drier than intended (since I hadn't adjusted the wet ingredients for the substitition) but when soaked in melting ice cream this wasn't a problem.
People did notice the prevalence of "healthy" foods and absense of things like chips and crackers, but nobody seemed to consider it a negative. In fact, I got a number of compliments on the fruit & veggie canapes. With the experience under my belt: of the four veggie bases I used, the zucchini had the least staying power, tending to soften up by the end of the evening. The daikon was still very crisp at the end of the day, with the cucumber falling in between and the cherry tomato halves holding up well, too. The toppings all seemed to behave themselves fairly well, although the carrot paste seemed to be getting a little watery as time went on.
I'm still getting the hang of my new grill. It definitely cooks hotter towards the back, although I think that's largely due to the wind-baffling effect of the structure. I had all four burners going with two rows of skewers being slowly rolled from front to back to plates and once I got a rhythm going it seemed to work adequately. (Manning the grill also gave me a chance to make sure I interacted with everyone.)
I think people had a good time -- at any rate, the ones who said anything about it to me did! Lots of mixing between the various facets of my life. And the session of "tell funny stories via gag gifts about how you know hrj" session seemed to work as intended as an ice-breaker. Extra special thanks toscotica who stayed through the end of the dishwashing at the end of the evening.
aastg and goldenstag showed up vastly early (due to losing access to the invite e-mail in a computer issue) and were promptly put to work chopping and skewering, with other early arrivers similarly being set on-task.The fruit and vegetable-based canapes were quite a success. Only a fraction of the possible veggie ones got made up -- we did two platters at the beginning with the intent of throwing together more later when they ran out, but there were still a good handful on the platters when we moved on the meal-like food (although there weren't any left over at the end of the evening). So I have bags of vegetable bases left to turn into soup. The meat skewers seemed to be about the right amount, although the mangled (not sliced) beef was just as hard to skewer as I feared (and had a tendency to fall off on the grill). In future, this will be remembered as now not to save work. I vastly over-produced on salads. Only one of the two bowls of green salad and one of the two bowls of grain salad even got broken into, and maybe half the 4-bean salad got eaten. I need to make notes about proportions per person actually consumed for future reference and planning. Fortunately, the leftovers fall nicely into the three categories of "stuff I would normally consume in a week anyway" (green salad, the small amount of unconsumed meat), "stuff that can be frozen for later" (grain salad, extra veggie bases turned into soup), and "stuff that can be disposed of at work" (the "bonus" cake). Much better than being left with large bags of unconsumed potato chips!
The accidental whole-wheat flour in the cake did make it noticably drier than intended (since I hadn't adjusted the wet ingredients for the substitition) but when soaked in melting ice cream this wasn't a problem.
People did notice the prevalence of "healthy" foods and absense of things like chips and crackers, but nobody seemed to consider it a negative. In fact, I got a number of compliments on the fruit & veggie canapes. With the experience under my belt: of the four veggie bases I used, the zucchini had the least staying power, tending to soften up by the end of the evening. The daikon was still very crisp at the end of the day, with the cucumber falling in between and the cherry tomato halves holding up well, too. The toppings all seemed to behave themselves fairly well, although the carrot paste seemed to be getting a little watery as time went on.
I'm still getting the hang of my new grill. It definitely cooks hotter towards the back, although I think that's largely due to the wind-baffling effect of the structure. I had all four burners going with two rows of skewers being slowly rolled from front to back to plates and once I got a rhythm going it seemed to work adequately. (Manning the grill also gave me a chance to make sure I interacted with everyone.)
I think people had a good time -- at any rate, the ones who said anything about it to me did! Lots of mixing between the various facets of my life. And the session of "tell funny stories via gag gifts about how you know hrj" session seemed to work as intended as an ice-breaker. Extra special thanks to
scotica who stayed through the end of the dishwashing at the end of the evening.
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no subject
Date: 2008-06-02 09:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-02 09:49 pm (UTC)((Hanging my head in shame) I missed the chips.)
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Date: 2008-06-02 10:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-02 10:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-02 10:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-02 10:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-02 11:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-03 05:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-03 01:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-03 07:57 pm (UTC)I'd be interested in the recipes? Expecially for the fruit & veggie canapes...