Shirley's party advice part 4 - Better at party planning than Pippa Middleton

[BlatherskiteOfTheLivingDead]

New thread :) Everyone welcome.

When is your half term? Judging by face painting course dates, ours is non-standard this term...

Ooh you lucky thing. Lots of DH's work collegues are West Midlands based and they all seem to get at least 1 non-standard half term -with cheap holidays - per year.

Ours is 18th-22nd Feb.

It's great if you are going away - not so much otherwise, especially if the weather is lousy, as nothing is open (swimming pools etc). Ours is the week before yours - which doesn't completely rule out lunch, TBH.

They all seem to desend on Centre Parcs whenever they get a non standard holiday. Costs half as much as a normal week and it's deserted. We're very jealous.

It's the one thing that makes me think twice whenever DH suggests moving closer to his work :)

Where does DH work, then [nosy]?

I've DMed you on Twitter Stealth :)

You never did finish your Salmon tweet. Why did it need rectangular plates?

For everyone else - I've foolishly agreed to do a Come Dine With Me style (very friendly) competition in an attempt to force ourselves to see each other more often. It all seemed like lots of fun until we started compiling the list of things that people won't eat and now I'm getting a bit stressed. I need to do the full aperitif, starter, main course, desert and after dinner entertainment thing. Any help would be gratefully received!

Our half term is 11th-15th feb.

Laughing at the come dine with me plea. What are you thinking for menu? And entertainment....err not karaoke! Cake decorating session...make your own pudding!

Stealth:airbrushed cake...google throws up some mega complicated looking ones so no idea how to start with that!

DW - our half term is the same as yours, then.

Blathers - silly shaped plates massively increase ponce value. What DO they all eat? You could change direction completely and go American to match the Key Lime pie.

Entertainment - get that Kinect and a Dance game!

So I'm the odd one out then! I'm fairly stuck in term time as DD is at pre school 3 days a week now and on the days she's not, I don't like being too far away as DH is an hours drive from home while at work so I need to be close by for emergencies. By the time I've done school drop off, driven 90 mins to you and left enough time to get home with extra time for traffic, I'd not have a lot of time with you anyway :(

I'm considering some sort of pre-dinner cocktails with maybe some breadsticks and olives, a mezze/anti pasti type starter which I've found a load of recipes for in my Jamie book, then Chicken Cacciatora with salad and fresh bread...I'm a bit stuck on pudding. DH wants Key Lime pie but it's a bit of a departure from the Italian theme. I considered a Semi Freddo but I've never made one before.

Entertainment - I used to have a game called Rapidough years ago which I thought might work as you need 3 teams and I'll have 3 couples but I have no idea where mine has gone and it's £30 to buy new! It's basically pictionary with play dough but if you lose, you lose a bit of dough so it gets harder and harder to model your word. It's easy and fun so not too taxing for full up people. Sound OK? I can't sing so no Karaoki

Italian American? Gangster themed?

Good twist Stealth. I love it :)

Get a few of these?

If this weren't January I might but Birthday, Christmas and upcoming car MOT/Tax/Insurance (who buys a car in January FFS!) will mean this needs to be done cheap!

Fair enough - go with the theme and let people provide their own accessories (or not). American Italian can be cheap ingredients.

I was going to do Lamb shanks. Chicken will be a lot cheaper.

Do you think the game will work?

Absolutely - it's a variation on pictionary /draw something, so people will get it.

I hope so. I thought it might be familiar enough to be easy after a few drinks and yet different enough to be interesting.

I did a charity shop run for platters today but only came back with a cute little glass jug for cream. I found some Dragon print plates which I nearly bought for CNY but they wanted £2 each for them!

My problem is going to be the size of my table I think. It seats 4 and there are 6 of us! I thought I might try getting a long thin wooden platter and raising it above the plates using cans of tomatoes like they do in Jamie's Italian restaurants. That way, i can put the starter mezze stuff in the middle of the table for picking it without taking up too much of the table as plates will be able to tuck underneath a little. Does that sound OK?

OK, I've ordered a very 'Jamie' looking bit of driftwood from Ebay for my Anti Pasti platter, bought some little white dipping bowls to go with it and I've ordered Rapidough too.

DS has also chosen his World Book Day outfit - the Incredible Book Eating Boy! I've ordered a long sleeved red t-shirt and I'm going to paint orange stripes on it - partly because I can't find a stripey one that would work and partly because I think it'll look more authentic if it's painted - but what else do I do? It's going to be a rubbish outfit if it's just him in a t-shirt! I might scan the front of the pop up book and make him a badge and I think I'll pop over to the scrap store for some jotters (red obviously) that I can cut bite marks into. I might even make him a booky packed lunch... Anything else?

Oh God, Book Day. I had forgotten about Book Day. It's bound to be when I am away. I don't know the book eating boy - I will google.

I made a quilt top this evening - just to prove to myself that I could. I now need to decide what to do with it (i.e. am I brave enough to actually quilt it?)

You could make him a couple of books out of this to eat at strategic moments?

I thought I could make him a couple of book sandwiches for lunch. Maybe even a book cake. I'm not sure if he'd be allowed food in the classroom so thought I could just cut teeth marks into a couple of notepads and maybe scan some book covers to cover them in. I could find some food themed books maybe...A recipe book, Ketchup on Your Cornflakes, Book Eating boy obviously?

If you've gone to all the effort of making a quilt top, it'd be a shame not to quilt it now I think.

Notebooks with bites out sound good - and have the advantage that they can be used afterwards.

I think I have decided that since it was so quick to make (it's just a strip quilt, which my quilting expert SIL was suitably scathing about, but I like it) then it is the ideal chance to try quilting without messing up months of work. I just need to work out what I need and how to do it now .

Yes, we can use half eaten books as colouring books afterwards and I should be able to get a pack dirt cheap from the scrap store so it shouldn't cost much. I'll just be sick to death of cutting teeth marks by the time they're done. I really need to get a new craft knife I think.

Oooh this is gorgeous. Now I want to make a strip quilt too!!

Mine isn't even that fancy although I could slice it up and do that with it. If you Google 'jelly roll quilt race' then that's basically it. I impulse-purchased a jelly roll of batik patterns and personally I think it works quite well.