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Part of me approaches adulthood as an anthropologist where I feel compelled to explore and understand alien rituals.  In this case, the ritual is the post-college party and it is alien because it involves the trappings of adulthood which I view with skepticism.  There is a power to making something your own and I intended to make this party my own with a reasonably diverse menu and a reasonably diverse guest list.    24 people attended and I’m glad everyone seemed to find a place to sit when they need to.  I prepared a goodly collection of foods for the evening but my guests brought more and the serving areas quickly ran out of table space, what I consider a happy problem.

I was initially worried that we’d not have anything to do but that stopped being a concern when I heard shouts of cheer from the rec room.  My guests had created a drinking game out of putting a Roomba on a pool table.  Hazaa for geeks.  Later, the large group broke up into clusters in the dining room, kitchen, and rec room while Whit, Joe, and Pat held court in the Living room.

I can think of no other way to phrase it except to say that for the first time in a while I was content when I expected to only be satisfied.  A thank you to my guests who made entertaining much easier than I thought it’d be.

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I can’t stand people drolly watching television but I have no qualms about plopping people around a fire in the cold with no other forms of communication besides talk.  Well…. there were a few other:

ENTER – My Brother

Apparently, since time immemorial by brother has taken to disposing of his beer bottles by throwing them onto the top of the trailers in the fire lot.  One scores a point by heaving a bottle onto the roof and having it stay there without falling.  Only two points were scored that evening.

A friend of mine had come up from Virginia and brought himself some whiskey.  He fell backwards off of the cinder block on which he was sitting and my brother sprung to action.
Ryan: You know what they do when they train a horse?
Guest: No.
Ryan: If you fall of, you get back on.
Guest: Ok.  I’d like a hand.
Ryan:  You get back onto that block, and kick it’s ass!

The end of evening, on my brother’s way out, he looked at my guest and said “You’ve tamed the block”.

I had far more food than I needed and re-discovered something I learned a while ago: When it’s cold out, people don’t like getting up and tend to eat less.  The exceptions to this were the hot dogs that we found legion ways to roast, marshmallows (but not any of the other s’more pieces) and interestingly enough Cheetos.

I look forward to having more.

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My brother diplomatically hosted Christmas.  He prepared a spiral ham that was ok.  I prepared a smore brownie that was ok.  Everyone drank wine that was ok (except for me, who had sparking white grape juice that was ok).  We exchanged gifts that were ok (I got a GPS that was ok) and listened to music that was ok with people that were ok.  Considering my loathing of these get-togethers and how low my standards have been ground, I had an awesome Christmas.

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Work held a holiday part today which is the first to which I’ve been invited in the last six years.  Turns out the giant tent against which I railed as the emblem of anti-snow was for this gathering.  The setup tables each represented the food of a different culture and had three dishes served by an awkward team of a kitchen staffer and an executive.  The plates were about six inches across and the serving sizes were “fun sized” a la the diminutive candy bars dispensed during Halloween requiring six or seven individual trips to create something along the size of an appetizer.  There were two exceptions: The shrimp, which were the size of a man’s fist, and the desserts, which included cupcakes the size of a baby’s head.  I’m pretty sure that the bread pudding was served in shot glasses which was convenient as one doesn’t have enough hands to hold both a beverage and any sort of foodstuff.  Each station held the highlight of world gastronomy: fried starch, which is always appreciated.

I don’t know if the coordinator planned this but the best food was dished out by the most intimidating executive.  The #1 at the company guarded the shrimp, and the #2 monitored consumption of the prepared egg rolls.  This also synced somewhat with the ethnicity of the executive.  I’ll have to see how this tracks from year to year.

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I held a brunch today and went through about 6 lbs of potatoes, 4 lbs of meat, a dozen eggs, and the equivalent of 4 sticks of butter for 6 people.  This is a bit of an exaggeration as I have sizeable leftovers.  Anyway, most of the butter went into dutch baby bunnies that quickly became called dutch baby butter bunnies as the recipe called for 1/2 a stick a piece.

The start of the recipe is to melt the stick in a skillet and then to dump the batter on top of it.  I think the recipe overstated the need for butter as the bunny wasn’t lifted from the skillet so much as slid from it with about a tablespoon or two of butter puddled in the middle like a confectionary kiddy pool being dropped from a drop deck trailer.  Based on the grunts and groans, everyone had their fill and I wasn’t too enthused about cleaning up so I left the butter soaked pan to rest until after nap time.  I returned and pan had been licked clean based on the tongue marks and the rest of the butter had been absorbed by the pan, nicely seasoning it.  Behold the power of butter.