It's the most wonderful time of the year... for a party!

I've been looking for excuses to cook more, clean my apartment, and have a housewarming party. And what better excuse is there than a Saturday? Well, a Saturday at holiday time, perhaps!
This last Saturday I threw a little shindig at my lovely Queens apartment and managed to drag about 20 of my closest friends into one of the most hated boroughs in New York.
*Disclaimer: Pretty much any borough not named Manhattan or Brooklyn is in tough competition for that beloved honor of being most hated. I think Staten Island may actually take the cake, but there's not much love for the rest of us either.*

Every party needs a menu, so I think I blew a good 4 hours digging around on allrecipes.com and foodnetwork.com until I had the perfect combo of easy party foods and drinks. Final menu selections: deviled eggs, meatballs in cranberry and chili sauce, baby BLTs (cherry tomatoes stuffed with bacon, mayo and green onions - little slices of heaven in bite-sized doses!), snickerdoodles, brownies, hand-dipped chocolate-covered pretzels, a chocolate chip cheese ball (huge success!) and spicy pecans. Drink menu: hot buttered rum and spiced wine, and countless bottles of wine.

The only hiccup in this lofty plan was the ridiculous cold I'd been fighting for weeks and the torn intercostal muscle causing me grief from way too many hours of coughing. I was exhausted and in pain for a good chunk of my cooking time, which is probably why I thought it was ok to deep-fry pecans at 2am when I've never deep-fried anything, ever. I was fairly close to having to send the regretful "sorry the party's canceled because I stupidly burned down my apartment" email, but somehow managed to salvage the pecans and my apartment, and had some damned tasty nuts to show for it.

The hot buttered rum was a recipe I found online that made my tummy smile and my teeth ache in fear. The recipe calls for 1lb butter, 1lb powdered sugar, 1lb brown sugar, 1qt vanilla ice cream, cinnamon and nutmeg. People, that's 4lbs of essentially pure fat and sugar! And I've never tasted anything quite so scrumcious!








The chocolate chip cheese ball, which apparently tastes just like cannoli filling, had cream cheese, sugar, vanilla and mini chocolate chips. Easy as it gets, and wins friends over left and right.

As for the snickerdoodles, well, those cookies have won me two marriage proposals so far! If I'd only realized sooner that you can rule the world with just a little good food... suffice it to say, it's a good thing I'm using my powers for good and not evil. So far.





All in all, the party was a smash hit for the first party I've really ever thrown. Most of the food was gone in a blink, as was all of the alcohol. And I mean all of it. Followed up with a rousing round of karaoke in Manhattan. And all done in my new super-cute Kenneth Cole sweater dress! Who could ask for anything more? (The face of a girl who has been up cooking and cleaning way too many hours
in a bathroom mirror in midtown Manhattan at 12:30am, avoiding
singing in front of complete drunken strangers. No smiles left.)