It's a Mystery

Last weekend, I threw a Murder Mystery dinner party for El Hubby's birthday. In the past, we never really celebrated his birthday because it was so close to Valentine's Day and it was difficult to get people together. This year, I decided to make Valentine's Day weekend all about him. My friends and I have talked about throwing a murder mystery for a while now so I thought his birthday would be the perfect opportunity to do it.

I purchased "Murder at Franklin Vinatra's Birthday Party" from Amazon, which is a cool instant download kit. I just printed out the document, assigned characters, and emailed everyone their first set of clues. It got a bit scandalous (in a PG-13) kind of way because of cross-intruigues and affairs so it might be better to do this for an all-singles party. There's a bunch of different themes available, like this Christmas Murder one: Murder Mystery Party Game Instant Download: Twas the Night of Pandemonium - a Christmas Murder or this funny pirate one: Mystery Party Game Instant Download: Ahoy Mateys! The Mystery on Bootstrap Bluebeard's Pirate Ship. I might do something utterly ridiculous next time, like a Pride and Prejudice and Zombies theme muah ha ha.

Since this party was a 19050's Hollywood Glamour themed, I served mostly 1950's era food and drinks. It was a bit challenging getting the timing of food down because I had to use the oven for most of it. Hubby promised me two ovens in our next house and probably a professional range but yeah...that might take a while haha. In the meantime, I'm on the lookout for a countertop convection oven/toaster oven. When it is just the two of us, it is a pain (and inefficient) to heat up the entire oven to make 2 servings of food. We got rid of our microwave for health reasons (completely based on conjecture, and not science) so we only heat up food on the stove or oven. Also, we have lots of people over, it's nice to have an extra oven unit around to bake appetizers or keep stuff warm until it is ready to serve.

I have my eye on this Cuisinart Oven, which is $142.99, shipped:

Cuisinart TOB-195 Exact Heat Toaster Oven Broiler, Stainless
It received hundreds of reviews and still managed to maintain a near 5 star rating. Hubby's coworker recommended this unit too so I think it will be a good, reliable bet. The only downside is that this thing is HUGE. I like to keep things in proportion to the scale of the surroundings and this might be overwhelming. Also, the "negative" reviews are few but disconcerting. Lots of talk about burnt fingers and confusing digital buttons and poor toasting qualities.

There's also this sleek Breville Toaster oven for $249 (Or $299 from Williams Sonoma) that has received good reviews.

Breville BOV800XL The Smart Oven 1800-Watt Convection Toaster Oven with Element IQ

It has sleeker lines and looks a bit more compact, which I like. The negative reviews on this one are also relatively few (18 out of 453) but that's where I learned that you can't heat foil or oven-proof glass in it. It also mentioned shattered glass doors. Hmm. And these two are the high-end, highly rated units too! Does anyone have a good convection toaster oven to recommend?

1:30am and all is clear

As I begin this entry, the hubs is snoozing away and I am concurrently waiting for the laundry to finish washing and cake to finish baking. Why am I doing housework at this hour of the day you ask? It's because I am nutters. Juuust kidding. (ok, perhaps just a little). Why the cake? Well, tomorrow, I am hosting a fancy pants murder mystery dinner for hubster's birthday and I'm trying to get as much done in preparation for tomorrow as possible. Why the laundry? Because I clean as I cook and in the middle of sanitizing the counters, I accidentally dropped some bleach water onto my favorite jeans. It is twirling in the laundry and I hope my quick action will prevent it from bleaching unsightly spots on it. (Memo to self--never wear one's favorite jeans to do housework.)

I have prepped almost everything by now. It was supposed to be an easy bash for me to host... it's a 50's themed bash so there was going to be lots of easy comfort food such as meatloaf and mashed potatoes. I even ordered dessert-some fancy flavored macarons--rather than attempting to make my own. However, due to an unfortunate turn of events, the baker had to cancel today and here I am, at 1:35am, waiting for the last layer of my last minute cake to finish baking.

I suppose I could have picked up a random cake from the supermarket tomorrow but I have a habit of making everything more difficult than it needs to be, such as driving the extra 30 minutes to the local Whole Foods-esque market to buy vegetarian-fed, local pasture-raised, hormone-free meat. My conscience wouldn't let me buy Costco beef. And did I really need to get Palestinian limes for my gin & tonics? yep...that was a must-have too. Had I more time, I would have also gone to the Eastern European meat market near our house to pick up some rosewater syrup to make rose martinis. Ooh...wouldn't a bit of rose simple syrup sprayed on the cake taste good too? I love roses.

Ok, I'm off-tangent now and the cake is done. Good night, farewell, I'm off to go to sleeeep. Adieu, adieu, to you and you and youuuuuu...goood-night!