Better Homes & Gardens Meets Pee-Wee's Refridgerator

On Saturday night, we hosted Bernhardt and Stacy's "Good Riddance to Bad Rubbish Get the Hell Out of Chicago" going away party. As I said in my previous post, I wanted to do something very kitschy. I made as many animal shaped food items as I could with good ingredients like olives, cream cheese, Velveeta and jimmy dean sausage!! I wanted to make the housewives of 1968 proud!

The menu included a pair of Red Velvet Lobster cakes.



Here are the guests of honor. What a pair of Lobsters!!



Whenever Bern knows you are taking a picture of him, he always looks like he's going to prison.

Anywho, the menu. Yes, we move on to our next course of olive and cream cheese penguins with a cream cheese, ham and green onion cheese ball igloo.



With a strawberry topiary in the background.

Next we have deviled eggs with Octowieners!!



OK, sure, you've seen those before. But have you ever seen squidogs??



Pictured with canned squid in ink from the Richwell Chinese market and squid jerky from Mitsua Japanese market. The jerky has a weird consistency, like chicken and beef together. I sort of felt like it might be similar to human jerky but that's kind of gross, so forget i mentioned that.

OK, on with the show! I also served a shrimp cocktail dip with cream cheese (AGAIN!!!), shrimp and yes, cocktail dip sauce. How complicated! I served cocktail wieners wrapped in bacon in a brown sugar, whiskey and ketchup sauce. Yum! Jimmy Dean sausage toasts, with Jimmy Dean sausage smothered in Velveeta on rye cocktail toasts, which are always a hit. We had a bowl of cheese cubes and tooth pics. Classy! There was a Gruyere cheese fondue with french bread and assorted vegetables to dip, as well as a basket of assorted crackers.



The food after it's been attacked by the starving masses, with my Aunt Dottie and my friend John in the background.

Aren't we looking good!!



It was a beautiful night, so everyone wanted to hang out outside!




All in all, we had a great time, and drank a ridiculous amount of beer, wine, and of course whiskey! Here in one of our mass group shots, we toast to a quick and easy exodus out of Chicago to the promise land of Charleston South Carolina!



Much drunken offerings of "I'm gonna miss you sooo much" were slurred!



You guys aren't going anywhere without some goodbye kisses!



The evening went way into the wee hours, with no complaints from the neighbors even though we were dancing away at 3:30! I'm glad I gave them warning! Click here for a our slide show and click here for Stacy's slide show of all the party drunkenness.



Thanks to everyone for a wonderful evening! Bern and Stacy: WE'RE GONNA MISS YOU!!