Birthday Celebrations

Birthday celebrations were successful!

Somehow I got drafted to be in charge. I blame Giz (the obvious solution). Usually Giz is in charge of managing the troops, but since it was for her birthday, we couldn't put her in charge. So I got stuck "herding the cats" in my family.

We decided to mix things up and plan an evening of games. While packing (for the impending move), I came across an old murder mystery game I had from my 15th birthday. At first I thought we could just re-use it because it had been long enough since playing it last that I wouldn't recall the storyline. Then, I realized how old I am and came to terms with it being time to get rid of the game...It would be too difficult to find a tape player to play the tape that comes with the game.

Realizing that this is the 21st century, I did what any reasonable person would do...I searched on line for a murder mystery game and came across this site hostparty.com. It seemed well-organized, so I searched for a murder theme that would work for the group and sent out electronic invitations to the guests from there.

UPDATE: The game was fun...there were 4 rounds of clues and at each round the players had to reveal a clue. The idea is to weave the clue into a conversation, but everyone ended up just reading their clues and then yelling, "I heard that character X...." (basically yelling out the clue as soon as they read it). In any case, it was still fun.

In the end, Actorboy turned out to be the murderer. I liked how it was a ready-made game that incorporated everyone. But, I find that the murder mysteries are not particularly clever. In the end, it's not as though you would really guess how the murderer carried out the act -- it's basically a random result that falls a bit flat.

I decided to play it relatively safe by mainly selecting dishes that I've tried and love.

Of course, that involves Caprese Skewers:


I figured Portobello Mushroom Pizza would be a hit with at least some of the crowd, but even the fussier eaters ate them.





I made the easy lemon dill salmon - another simple dish.

Probably the biggest risk (which is still minor in the world of food risks) is the chicken dish. The fear is ending up with flavourless or dried out chicken. But, after browning the outsides and letting it finish in the oven, the chicken was very succulent and earned several kudos.

But, really - the commendments go to For the Love of Cooking. I made her Grilled Chicken with Mustard Tarragon Sauce. It was a great pairing with the chicken and actually went very well with the salmon too. I HIGHLY recommend that you try it.

The mustard-tarragon sauce is the dish on the left, below.


On the right is a herb and roasted garlic butter spread I made (it was just ok).


Actorboy and his gf were in charge of getting the cake. They got a carrot cake for Giz....


And a lemon meringue tart for my birthday (which was just a few days after Giz's b-day).

Of course, no one was hungry for fruit, but it's mandatory dessert food.