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.

Geek Christmas Crafts

DIY CHRISTMAS ORNAMENTS WITH A GEEKY FLAIR

by Sandi Moser

For as much as I like to craft, my décor at home is not really conducive to showing it off 11 months of the year. At Christmas, however, decorating ideals go out the door and my house fills with a variety of homemade items. One of our pieces of modern art is replaced by a reindeer painting by my daughter. Our mantle is adorned with a snow globe featuring my son’s toddler fingers as snowmen.

One of my favourite places for homemade crafts is the Christmas tree. My usual clean line, modern (but homey) living room features a tree adorned with handmade ornaments that go as far back as my own childhood. For as much as I like the look of a themed Christmas tree, nothing gets me more excited for the holidays as a popsicle stick snowman with an uneven smile (hanging near the back of the tree so the people outside can appreciate it). 

In preparation for the season, and to find something to do with the kids leading into Christmas vacation, I went hunting for ideas to make a few new ornaments. Here are some of my favourite finds:

• Ninja Turtles: This one is first, because it gave me the idea to write this article in the first place. In the kid-friendly (read: easy) version, glue an appropriately coloured ribbon around a green Christmas ball and add googly eyes. Voila, the ninja turtle of your choice. Those with more artistic flair can get out the paint and hand draw bandanas and eyes. Either way, you have a turtle for your tree.
• Minions: As a variation of the Ninja Turtle ornament, use a yellow Christmas ball with black ribbon and one or two eyeballs (again, googly eyes, or maybe felt). Feel free to add a mouth and hair with a black marker or paint.
  
• The Golden Snitch: What I liked about this one is that it’s not overtly “geeky”. It’s actually quite a pretty ornament, using a gold Christmas ball and attaching some wings. Harry Potter fans may recognize it, but it could likely hide in a tree without much notice.

• Lego Death Star: With a 5-year-old in ‘da house, we have more than our share of Star Wars-themed Lego. What do I like most about this craft? We can put it together and take it apart every Christmas!
  
• Dalek: OK, here is where I have to admit my pop culture blind spot – Dr. Who. I’ve never watched an episode, but I know there are a lot of fans out there. I came across this ornament for the more advanced crafters. The instructions are pretty involved, but the result is pretty cool, even for someone who doesn’t know a Dalek from a cylon.

I hope you’ve found some inspiration for bringing a bit of homemade to your own Christmas tree. Happy Holidays!

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.

Geek Girl Guide to Halloween in Ottawa

GEEK GIRL GUIDE TO HALLOWEEN IN OTTAWA

By Marie Victoria Robertson

If you’re like me, you think of Halloween as more of a lifestyle than a holiday. For one month out of the year, I subsist on candy corn, conversation about who’s dressing up as what, and feasting my eyes on amazing, geek-themed pumpkins (I once carved a Jack Skellington but it feels like I shamed my pumpkin in comparison to those. Sorry, pumpkin). If you want to party or keep it low-key with only one outing or two, here’s a list of fun Halloween things to keep you busy in Ottawa this month.

SPOOK YOUR KIDS

For those with little spawns this Halloween, you can enjoy a family-friendly scare at Saunders Farm with their pumpkin patch and wagon rides (and do check out their Fright Night selections for those minus kids), learn about the Day of Dead (and the story behind sugar skulls) with Dora and Diego at the Children’s Museum, or take them to see Pumpkinferno, the beautiful display of hand-carved pumpkins at Upper Canada Village.   

HEROES & VILLAINS: “MADNESS AT THE ASYLUM”

Halloween season for the geek community is nothing without a stop at the annual Heroes & Villains party. Don your best hero costume (or villain, they’re more fun) and head over to the Ottawa Curling Club on November 1^st at 8:30pm. Check the Facebook group to find out where you can buy you tickets. There will be prizes for most awesomest costume, so work extra hard!

EVENTS AT BILLINGS ESTATE

For those who might want a calmer spook experience, Billings Estate National Historic Site is hosting a few Halloween events such as offerings by the Ottawa StoryTellers on October 16, 17 and 18, and an Edwardian séance on October 26 and 27. Contact the Facebook group for more information and to reserve your spot. 

THE HAUNTED CARNIVAL

In the mood for a night of Halloween glitz and glamour on October 31st? To quote the Haunted Carnival’s Facebook event page: “The event blends the excitement and elegance of a Hollywood Halloween spectacle - with the mystique and decor of travelling carnivals from the 19th Century.” The admission is a bit steep at $50 for students and $70 regular, but it sounds like quite the show!

HAUNTED WALK OF OTTAWA: “INCIDENT AT THE BUNKER”

The always-reliable Haunted Walk of Ottawa has a few special Halloween-themed walks, but the icing on the cake is the “Incident at the Bunker” tour, which takes place at the Diefenbunker every weekend until November 1st. Did you know some wacky experiments took place there a couple of decades ago? Go back in time and find out what was so terrifying! (Hint—it’s zombies). I tried out the tour the first year it started and let me tell you, it’s bloody fun to run from zombies in the bunker cafeteria, or to shoot them before they can get too close to your group—yes, with Nerf guns, but does it really matter? Zombies! 

CATCH THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW AT THE MAYFAIR THEATRE

If parties and zombies aren’t your things, you can always sit back, relax, and do the Time Warp again at the Mayfair Theatre, which will be showing Rocky Horror Picture Show Fridays and Saturdays starting October 24^th. Bring your popcorn, party hats, newspapers and water guns, and enjoy a stellar shadow cast (a live cast acting out the movie all around you) that will make you shiver with antici…..pation

KEEP IT MELLOW

For those looking for a quiet night at home once the trick-or-treaters are gone, you can’t go wrong with a good scary movie. You can stick to a classic like The Exorcist (until you don’t mind the backwards crab-walk at all) or Hellraiser (if you ask me, Pinhead beats all other classic horror villains) or revisit a childhood classic like Beetlejuice or Hocus Pocus (I think Billy Butcherson the zombie was one of my first creepy childhood crushes). 

For an even mellower night, get yourself some Halloween-themed bath goodies from Lush and grab a good book. May I propose The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury, The Helllbound Heart and The Books of Blood by Clive Barker, an old creepy classic like The Horla by Guy de Maupassant or a modern horror like John Dies at the End by David Wong?

Just remember to sleep with the lights on. 

Marie Victoria Robertson is a published speculative fiction writer and playwright, as well as the board president of Jer’s Vision: Canada’s Youth Diversity Initiative (www.jersvision.org). When all the other girls wanted to marry Johnny Depp, she wanted to run away with Worf on the Enterprise. She enjoys giant robots, time-travel paradoxes, and forcing her son to watch Futurama.