Valentining

February 22, 2024 at 11:30 · Filed under just chirping and tagged: Food, friendship, valentines

…apologies for the delay, but here goes my Valentine’s dinner report.

• THEME – So, I decided to do one of those murder mystery dinners, while in Chicago, I bought a kit, but when I opened it to have a look at it, its for 6-8 people. Now there are 6 of us in Bookclub, so I need at least 12, so this wasn’t going to work. In addition I invite a few other couples to join us, so I needed a game to accommodate 16! Thankfully the internet saved the day, and I found a fun game, based in trailer park, so it became a super classy trailer park murder mystery!
• DECOR – fortunately I didn’t have to do too much, or have the house looking particularly glam. I used some cans as vases, borrowed some small metal flamingoes from a friend, made some redneck wind chimes, and printed some posters that the game provided.
• FOOD – Cocktail – Frozen Peach Aperol Margarita (not a crowd pleaser – a bit strong); Amuse bouche – Gorgonzola guacamole stuffed mushrooms with buffalo sauce (yum, but should have used bigger mushrooms, they shrunk dramatically during roasting) ; Starter – BBQ grilled chicken on a bed of cheesy polenta (so good! the polenta was a winner!); Mains – Smoked Brisket (thanks Charlie for 10 hours of smoking), macaroni cheese, smoky baked beans (so flipping good!), salted honey butter rolls(OMG, get into my mouth!) and cucumber salad (a good foil for all the rich food); Dessert – hot fudge chocolate brownie ice cream sundaes (these were the second attempt at a dessert – I initially made these in cones, but there was a disaster when the freezer door was left ajar and the ic cream on top of the brownie melted and fell off the cone, so a plan had to be made, and there was no time to recreate the cones, but still tasted delicious, I think my best brownie ever).

So, the game worked like this – with their invitations, the guests had received their character’s name, a description and some background on their character, and a copy of the trailer park’s newsletter. Once everyone had arrived, they received their name tag and an envelope giving them personalised instructions. Included in the envelope was ‘$500’, which was used to buy silence, bribe people, etc. Once the evening was under way, and everyone was getting very merry, it was time for the victim to die… now she did not know she was the victim until the night, so, when we killed the lights, she collapsed on the floor… It was then time for second envelope, the victim became the detective and the investigation was underway. by the end of the evening, everyone made an accusation, in addition to voting for best dressed, best actor and counting their money. And at the end of the evening we tallied the votes, only 1 person (in addition to the murderer themselves) guessed the murderer, and we ended with a ‘prize giving’.

We all laughed, acted, played along and generally had heap of fun! I (and my broken foot) were exhausted afterwards! Definitely recommended!

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