New Year's Party Food

EATING GEEKY ON NEW YEAR'S EVE

By Sandi Moser

New Year’s Eve is fast approaching. If you’re planning a party, you may be starting to think of the food and drinks you want to serve. If you’re like my husband and me, you’re also starting to plan how best to present those tasty treats to partygoers. Taste is certainly the most import consideration, but presentation comes in at a very close second.

Whether you’re planning a themed party or a mishmash of things you love, there is great inspiration to be found through a few quick internet searches. Here are a few ideas and recipes that may come in handy at your next party:

• If you want your New Year’s Eve party to be “magical”, you could consider a few items with a Harry Potter theme. I started with a search for a butterbeer recipe and was surprised at how many were available. Obedient Ingredients does a good job researching some of the recipes for you. To round out the theme, liquor bottles can be relabeled for potions class and veggie trays can be themed from herbology class. Of course, a Harry Potter theme is not complete without a big bowl of jelly beans.

• One of my favourite video games growing up was the Legend of Zelda. If I could throw any kind of nostalgic themed party for myself, this would be it. Heart-shaped red cookies, punch bowls filled with red, green and blue potions, and bowls of deku nuts (pistachios) would be scattered through the house. If you sing me the right song, I may also be convinced to get you a carafe of milk.

• Settlers of Catan fans can easily make a party setting simply by display foods in hexagonal shaped dishes. By artfully arranging said dishes and filling with a variety of foods (i.e., veggies, chips, pretzels and dips), it’s easy to recreate a Settlers board. Alternatively, for a sweet treat, a similar effect can be achieved with cupcakes (taking care to shape the icing as hexagonally as possible) or hexagonal cookies decorated with coloured icings. 

• If you’ll have a lot of kids in attendance, Minecraft seems to offer some of the easiest ideas for food presentation. It takes a bit of imagination, but it can be fun thinking of food ideas that can be used to represent various resources: pretzels for sticks, red licorice for TNT, blueberries for diamonds, honeydew melon balls as slime balls. You can also use food colouring with rice cereal squares to make blocks of sand, dirt, coal, etc.

In searching for your next party favour food, here are a few other websites beyond Pinterest you may find helpful:

• Kitchen Overlord 
• Geeky Hostess
• Geeky Chef 

Wishing you and yours a safe and Happy New Year!

Sandi is a 30-something environmental engineer and mother of two from the metropolis of Stittsville, Ontario. Writing for Capital Geek Girls is a new adventure for her, with previous writing experience limited to technical documents, briefing notes and Facebook updates. In her spare time, Sandi enjoys playing board games and video games, reading books, watching movies, and crocheting. She looks forward to sharing her geeky endeavours with you, as well as reporting on the next generation’s response to those endeavours.