"party" news and stories

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.

OK readers, I have a challenge for you. Do you dare accept it?

The other night I was watching an episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show, the one where Rob and Laura accidentally hear their neighbors Jerry and Millie talking about them on Richie's toy intercom. It's one of my favorite episodes, and I've always wondered if the dip that is mentioned in the episode, Avocado and Peanut Butter, was a real dip that someone on the cast or crew had made or if it was completely made up. It sounds like an odd combination, but I've heard of odder recipes.

The only clues I have are that it's a dip (Buddy puts it on crackers) and the ingredients are avocado, peanut butter, and mustard. Don't forget the mustard! It's the vital ingredient, though Buddy seems to like it better without it. Not sure if there are any other ingredients - these are the only three mentioned.

So who wants to make it and report back here on how it tastes? We could start a new trend here: real recipes based on fake TV and movie recipes.

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.

Source

What would a collection of SuperBowl dip recipes be without a little blue cheese, considering that it is held to be the gold standard of hot wing dips - excluding hot wing sauce itself, of course. Blue cheese (or bleu cheese, if you prefer) dip is made with a pungent, creamy cheese that cuts into the spiciness of hot wings by adding a new layer of flavor and a cooling sensation that dulls the heat of the chicken. The strongly flavored cheese, in most of these dips, is often combined with sour cream, mayonnaise or cream cheese, each of which contributes to the overall texture of the dip without bumping up the flavor to the point where it overpowers the hot wing itself.

This particular dip is a pretty standard recipe that you'll probably find in several different places. It calls for sour cream and mayonnaise in addition to the cheese, so "healthy" is not something that could be applied. You can always substitute low fat or nonfat sour cream/mayonnaise; using a good quality blue cheese will make up for any loss of flavor in either of those ingredients.

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.