Party plate. Photo: Taylor Gifts.

How many times have you, while trying to balance a plate full of hors d'oeuvres, a cocktail and a fork, lost at least one of those items? Maybe even down the front of your freshly dry-cleaned shirt? Or perhaps your own rug was the victim of such an incident at the last party you hosted.

That may change with the advent of the plastic party plate. These 10-by-10-inch plates with snap-off (and snap back on!) utensils come in red, black and clear, and while some not-so-environmentally-minded hostesses might think of these plates as disposable, we certainly don't. Since they're apparently made of a fairly sturdy plastic (sturdy enough to hold food and drink), and go for $8 for a set of four, we can't imagine anyone not using them again and again.

Of course, this just begets another question: Why use a party plate with snap-off utensils when you can use an old-school lunch tray and put regular utensils and wine glasses in their designated compartments? To each her own!

[Via Taylor Gifts]

Do not come between a Southern gent and his bourbon.

We learned this lesson at a recent NYC party when we observed a Mississippi native seize a bottle of Knob Creek, shake its last drops angrily into a cup and grab a bottle of pricey, small-batch Woodford Reserve only to be outraged to find this also nearly gone. "I knew I should have hidden the good stuff from these people!" he shouted, shaking his fist at the guests he'd invited to his home.

The cause of this maniacal outburst from a mild-mannered gent? Bourbon, and the thought of mixing it with store-bought gingerale. A wide-eyed belle from Jersey had ordered up a whiskey-and-ginger. Since only his finest was left, he delivered the bourbon abomination with a sigh, grumbling about "corn syrup on beautiful whiskey" in a thick accent en route.

Making a whiskey-n-ginger with the best bourbon in the house is where we -- who have certainly enjoyed a Jameson 'n ginger or (hic!) three -- would draw the line. But what does Chris Morris, master distiller at Woodford Reserve (the official whiskey of Derby Day) think?

Slashfood: "A party guest wants to combine supermarket gingerale with your excellent bourbon. Do you flip out?

Morris: "To be quite honest, I think whisky and gingerale is a great drink. Woodford Reserve has hints of ginger and a nice little citrus note and goes well with gingerale, a classic highball. Our response to anybody who thinks it's an insult is the question, 'Well, do you enjoy it?' If the answer is 'yes,' it's perfectly all right. We want make a great first impression, so if that person is a gingerale highball drinker, what better way than with Woodford Reserve in place of your regular bourbon?"

Hmm. Very interesting. What do y'all think:

When it comes to assembling the bar for your holiday party, there's a certain list of basics you must have on hand--vodka, gin, whiskey, cola, tonic, etc. Such a bar will certainly serve to make a decent drink and satisfy most customers, but won't add anything special to the festivities. The easiest--and cheapest--way to add a little magic is with unusual mixers. Here's five that will add a twist to your cocktail menu.

1. Canada Dry Sparkling Green Tea Ginger Ale
It mixes equally well with bourbon, vodka and light rum and works nicely in a punch. The antioxidants listed on the bottle may come in handy when battling the holidays' excesses, but the large amount of sugar won't help with that Christmas waistline.

2. Sence Rose Petal Nectar
If you wish to offer chick drinks that are more Deneuve/Dietrich than Carrie Bradshaw, rose petal nectar can come in handy. Try the elegant American Beauty--not the brandy version, but one made with vanilla vodka, lemon juice and rose petal nectar.

Happy Repeal Day! As I'm sure you know, today is the 75th Anniversary of the Repeal of Prohibition. For folks in my bizz, winemakers, brewers, and distillers; it's a big holiday. I heard that some of my local bars will be celebrating, although I wish I could make it to some of the big parties I've heard about.

The other day I got an email from Natalie Bovis-Nelsen, The Liquid Muse, a mixologist and booze blogger, about Repeal Day Parties around the country. I thought I'd like to share it with you. Then I did a little research on other party announcements. I read on Marketwatch that Dewar's is having Repeal Day Parties all over the country. The Business Sheet has some info about parties, and ProhibitionRepeal.com has a list of real Prohibition Era Speakeasies where you can celebrate.

Do you know of any Repeal Day Parties in your area?

"Pick Your Nose" is probably not a headline you expected to see on Slashfood. Well. There's a first time for everything.

These are 12 ounce paper cups with various noses on them. Finally, you can pick your friends' noses. I know you've wanted to. A pack of 24 is $9.95, aka way cheaper than plastic surgery.*

As for clipping your friends' nose-hairs, we're still working on that.

*also somewhat less effective.

Just so you know, we're already in Week Four of Martha Stewart's eight-week Halloween Party preparation countdown, so if you're not already working on your indoor decorations, it's time to get crackin'! The Martha has a slew of guides to spook-ify your house - papier-mache jack-o-lanterns, candy wreathes, paper mice, and Gothic black paper curtains. She's even provided a helpful weekly shopping list, with price breakdowns. Eight-inch round wire wreath frames and protective gloves: A Good Thing.

Next week Martha will hit outdoor decor; the week after that is all about candy crafts - papier-mache candy globes with jack-o-lantern faces, candy headstones, Halloween crackers, and boiling "candy cauldrons." I'm personally psyched about Week Two, which means licorice-filled "invisible pops." But I won't get ahead of schedule. I have a feeling Martha wouldn't like that.

Getting together for dinner and a movie can be one of the most prosaic (Domino's and Blockbuster) of gatherings. But it can become something significantly more special if the food and the visuals connect.

When I was a broke, just-outta-high school teen, my roommates and I would host Godfather parties, for which we'd make a lot of pasta, get some jugs of cheap wine and follow the rule of shouting "Godfather!" then clinking and drinking every time someone got whacked.

There was a "cases of champagne and little black dresses" Breakfast at Tiffany's birthday party, but the master of the art was my great friend Mr. Diva, who threw annual, movie-themed award show parties, paying homage to Picnic (fried chicken) or Blue Velvet (cherry pie and PBR).

You could simply rip open your bags of chips and throw them on the coffee table for your guests, but serving them in bowls and platters makes your get-together feel more like a party. Serving them in football-shaped servingware makes your party feel like you put some thought into it for the Super Bowl. We came across these ceramic football-shaped bowls, serving dishes, and platter while surfing on Amazon.com:

Touchdown Snack Bowl - Serve tortilla chips, potato chips, popcorn, and other snacks out of the microwave- and dishwasher-safe Touchdown Bowl, very appropriately shaped like a football. I love that the bowl's rim has "Tight End" on it. Available on Amazon.com for $19.99.

Touchdown Serving Dish Set - For smaller snacks like nuts, olives or dried fruit (but really, why would you serve dried fruit at a Super Bowl party?!?!) the Touchdown Serving Dish set is perfect. We'll go with nuts and serve roasted salted peanuts in one, pistachios in another, and seasoned almonds in the last. Available on Amazon.com for $19.99.

Touchdown Serving Platter - Pile chicken wings, taquitos, or other hot snacks on the Touchdown Serving Platter. Available from Amazon.com for $24.99.

I've always had an affinity for potlucks. There is something about the practice of gathering together with a community of people to share a meal that really appeals to me on a basic level. I grew up attending them, both those at the various Unitarian churches in which I grew up, as well as the more informal ones that would occur every couple of weeks within my parents' group of friends.

Over the years, I started inadvertently collecting potluck cookbooks, until I had six or seven on my shelf. This one, the retro-covered The Potluck Cookbook, is one of my favorites. Written by veteran food writer Dolores Kostelni, it contains a collection of classic potluck recipes from the last 50 years. The images are fun reprints of old magazine and commercial shots from the fifties and sixties, with a few quirky line drawings tossed in for added appeal.

This is a good book to have in your arsenal if you often find yourself asked to bring a dish along (office parties are always a challenge) and you realize that you can't bring your standard Tamale Pie anymore (your co-workers have seen it four times in the last year and a half). It's got good, tasty, fresh ideas (all that was old is new again) and is a fairly slim volume (so it won't take up too much space on your shelf).

It can't be all hard liquor at your Halloween party -- not that you don't plan to sip martinis all night, but some of your guests might prefer beer or wine. For the beer drinkers at your Halloween party, there's Post Road Pumpkin Ale.
Each batch of beer is made from hundreds of pounds of pumpkins, which create an orangey amber-colored beer with a pumpkin fragrance. The Pumpkin Ale is available for about $9.

Now here's a tip for chilling and serving that Pumpkin Ale. Get your hands on the largest pumpkin you can find, top it off, hollow it out, clean it, then fill with ice. It's a pumpkin cooler!

Keebler has been on quite a roll with their TownHouse line of crackers (the Bistro crackers are quite good). They're releasing several different flavors of their Toppers crackers, the latest being Garlic & Herb.

How are they? They're OK. The problem I have is that the garlic and herb flavors aren't quite strong enough. They have a really strong flavor of their regular buttery Toppers and then the mild garlic and herb flavor kicks in. I wish the flavor was stronger, like the garlic and herb crackers that you can get in the Ritz line and the Triscuit line and various veggie-flavored crackers.

Toppers are so named because they are a bit thicker than typical crackers and have a little curved "bowl" so you can put toppings on them without stuff fall off. According to the back of the box, you can "top 'em," "dip 'em," "serve 'em," or have them "stand alone." That last one sounds kinda odd. What, you don't eat them at all, you just let them sit there untopped and alone? Weird.

For over ten years now, Wolfgang Puck has been serving the stars at the Governor's Ball - also known as the official "after party" for the Academy Awards, where all the nominees congregate to look glamorous, talk to the press and eat dinner. Not all of the secrets of the Oscar ceremony itself, like what the stage is going to look like, are revealed ahead of time and the menu for the Ball was clearly a bit hush-hush to start. Fortunately, little by little, information leaked out.

The Ball is not going to be a sit-down affair, but an elegant/casual cocktail-type of party, an the overriding theme this year will be "Oscar goes organic." The food, in addition to being organic and/or humanely raised will be small or bite-sized, and will include favorites (and Puck standbys) like sushi, grilled Kobe beef, Spicy Tuna Tartare in a Sesame Miso Cone, Smoked Salmon Oscars with French Farm-Raised Osetra Caviar and Roasted Pumpkin Squash Ravioli with White Truffles. And, of course, there will be plenty of champagne and chocolate Oscar statuettes to go around.

Click past the jump for a preview of the whole menu.

Most of us will never get to eat a meal at the White House, joining up with heads of state from all over the world, as well as governors and other high-powered politicians, at one of the most famous dinner tables in the country. Curious about what the food was like, the Associated Press asked chefs, food professionals and foodies to take a look at some of White House's recent menus to see what makes the table - and whether it represents the country well.

With the exception of Tim Zagat (of the Zagat guides), who felt that the menus were "kind of strange", the reviewers praised the dishes prepared by executive chef Cristeta Comerford and her staff, designed with the help of first lady Laura Bush and social secretary Lea Berman. They used mostly American ingredients, with nods to the specific countries represented by guests. Chicken wasn't prominently featured, although Kobe Beef, Maryland blue crab, shrimp and lamb were chosen repeatedly, and every main was accompanied by lots of fresh, seasonal vegetables. The wine selections were also good, with lots of boutique wines that were clearly identified on dinner menus.

Professional football players have heavily regulated diets, but regardless of what they're eating when they're off the field, they're clearly working off those pounds when they play. The same cannot be said for the rest of us. During the Super Bowl, it is estimated that 30 million pounds of food, of which 4 million is fat, will be consumed across the country. Chips are the most popular snack, with 11.2 million pounds of potato chips sold for the game. Other snacks put up impressive numbers, as well: 8.2 million pounds of tortilla chips, 4.3 million pounds of pretzels, 3.8 million pounds of popcorn and 2.5 million pounds of nuts. And it doesn't look as though they counted calories from beer, sodas and other drinks in these numbers.

To avoid packing on the pounds during the game, there are a few simple things you can do:

• Eat breakfast or lunch before the party, so you won't be as hungry and as likely to binge.
• Try and go for a walk/run in the morning before the game and burn off a few extra calories.
• Try drinking diet soda or water to avoid the hundreds of calories that come from drinks alone.
• When it comes to snacks, make a low fat/low calorie dip to bring to the party, such as salsa, a bean-based dip or a yogurt dip made with nonfat yogurt.
• Limit your chip consumption by sticking to veggies or lower fat crackers for dipping - especially if you're planning on chowing down on pizza or buffalo wings.

One last suggestion? Stand up and cheer for your team when they get a first down and do your own little touchdown dance when they score. Taking the opportunity to burn off a couple of extra calories never hurt.

Cooking for a large group isn't easy, which is why many people choose to go for a potluck or to hire a caterer when their guest lists get long, whether they're planning a holiday dinner or a big party. On top of the amount of prep work and the cooking time that cooking for dozens of people can take, it can be difficult to find recipes that work because most cookbooks are not designed to have their recipes scaled up four, five or more times. The cookbook Food for Fifty is specifically designed to help those who are looking to get started in the catering business, but can also be a good reference if you simply want to be able to cook for really large groups yourself.

This is the 12th edition of a book that has been around for nearly three-quarters of a century, evolving to suit consumer tastes and technological advances in the kitchen as time goes by. The book goes into great depth when explaining all the basics of large scale food preparation, from different cooking techniques and timetables to guides to menu planning and wine/drink selection. There is also a good deal of information that pertains to shopping in large quantities and food storage both before and after the food has been cooked. The recipes include dishes in all categories so there will be something to suit the tastes of just about any group, although they can be adapted to suit different tastes or simply used as a template for new flavor ideas.