My regular readers will recall that, at my last Oscars party, I attempted to make a “Baked Nebraska” in honor of one of the nominated films. They will also recall how it was a complete disaster (but quite delicious), so everyone breathed a sigh of relief when no movies with the syllables “aska” were in the running this year. No, I would not be putting any ice cream in the oven this year. But what epic item could I catastrophically attempt?
Nachos are a staple of the party, so those were definitely in.
The hummus was a big hit last year, so it made a reappearance. Although after the fact I was rethinking the hilarious pun “boyhoomus” as possibly inappropriate…
We got some cheese and crackers, because they are easy and yummy.
It’s not a party without drinks. And by drinks I mean Coke. And by Coke I mean Cherry Coke.
Birdman’s nominations seemed to cry out for chicken wings, so I succumbed.
And as uncomfortable as “boyhoomus” made me, it was worse when I had to consider whether or not to write “zarella” over the face of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. But I did it anyway. Because mozzarella sticks are so good, and I really wanted to include Selma prominently at my party, unlike the Academy.
Now it was time to really try out some new things. The easiest one was the goulash I made to honor Whiplash. As you know, goulash (also called American chop suey) is the drums in the band of pasta, so it fit quite well. And it stayed warm in the crockpot, so I could make it ahead of time. Yeah, it was new and different for the party, but it did not have epic fail potential. Luckily my wife had an awesome idea.
“You should make a giant pink cake in the shape of the Grand Budapest Hotel!” she suggested. Well that was just crazy. That would never work! So clearly I had to do it.
I baked three sheet cakes, and then cut them in half to make the six stories of the hotel. I cut the last section up (poorly) to make towers and tops. I glued the layers together with chocolate frosting, and then I went for the red food coloring. Getting the right shades of pink proved to be impossible, so I decided to go with “darker pink” and “lighter pink” as my primary color bases. Then I went to work, gluing, sticking, decorating, and attempting to create the magic of my favorite nominated film in cake form.
I pretty much nailed it. I could tell how awesome it looked, because one of our party goers posted a picture of the cake online, and it got a lot of praise.
So another party was a huge success, even though the show was way too long, often boring, and somewhat awkward. But hey, we always love NPH, Lady Gaga was amazing, and it was all overstuffed with terrible puns. Just the way I like it.