Hello, my name is ____ and the beginnings of an idea.

As I invited the 120^th person to this past Thanksgiving 2.5 I realized a few things. 1, I may not have enough food (that led to the PSMU) and 2, what do i do about Introductions. Over the years, I have found that introductions are somewhat of an art and aren't as simple as they may seem. I'm going to mildly go into why won’t do them anymore and then how I may be able to resolve this issue for all future Thanskgiving 2's. You'll come to see why I believe that the name-tag, may set me free.

I first had the idea of offering name-tags to my guests during a prep conversation with my wife in early 2012. The idea came to me as a joke. What if I had some item that guests could wear that showed to everyone that you are single. If I see myself as anything, it’s matchmaker, or at least hook-up enabler. That’s not true, but I figured that there has to be a way. I was initially thinking that a pin on the collar or lapel would be nice and easy. I wanted it to be subtle so as to not be embarrassing, but he impracticalities of providing pins to upwards of 30 people would be another item on my job list. So the pin idea went out the window. So, if I'm not providing pins or ribbons the only viable alternative seems to be the name-tag.

I remember the moment that sealed the idea for me. Someone at TH2 actually brought up name-tags to me unsolicited. It was a single lady who wondered where the single guys were at and she even mentioned putting a star on tag to differentiate the singles in attendance. I knew then that I should incorporate them for next year.

I figure that if I’m going to do this then I’m going to drag it to where I want it. I don't want a plain tag with only a name on it. I am going to use all 4 corners of the tag. I am not ashamed to admit that I have played a role playing game or two in the past, and my favorite part was creating the characters. When the guests come in one of the first things they will do is create their tag. My thoughts so far:

•          Upper right: A star, blue for involved, Red for single

•          Lower right: A number indicating how many Thanksgiving 2 events you have been to.

•          Upper Left: A selection of food stickers. A carrot for vegetarians, one kind of symbol for hoppy beer aficionados, another for dry red wine lovers.

•          Lower Left: How you know me and/or my wife.

The upper left corner may seem odd, but TH2 is a foodie event. On a very basic level everyone has to eat, so if you see that the stranger you're talking to also likes hoppy beer then you immediately have something in common.

The 4th idea is clearly vague as of February, but I have some time to flesh it out. If I pick up a great variety of stickers I should be able to come up with some more concrete ideas.

Now you may be thinking “Why do people need name-tags in the first place, since you are the host shouldn’t you be introducing everyone to everyone else?” To this idea I say no! I am busy for the first few hours of these gatherings, and 90% of the people who come are adults. I think as an adult you should be capable of opening your mouths and introducing yourself. If you want to meet someone or are having a conversation with someone new, just tell them your name. It may appear harsh, but as soon as you realize that half of the guests will not know the other half you will see that I cannot introduce everyone. The math on that would kill me. It would be impossible and I would not be able to sit down and enjoy myself.

I don't know how much thought the average person puts into an introduction of two sets of strangers, but there are many subtleties to doing it properly. If I am talking to the previously mentioned single lady and she asks me where/who the single guys are I have two options. I can simply point out all the single guys in the room and leave her to fend for herself, or I can put the proper forethought into it. I should take my knowledge of those in attendance and give her a minor amount of unbiased information about the guys I would introduce her to. This would let her pick who she would like to meet first and introduce her to the first guy. As the night goes along I would show her to the other gentlemen if she deems it necessary. One a different hand if it is early in the event and only a few guests have arrived and an introduction is in order I would have to use my knowledge to bring up some possible semi-interesting commonality between them. If all else fails, I can always steer them towards the food tables. These are only 2 small examples of the additional work that I would have to do. I'm a busy guy at TH2. I'd much prefer to leave it to the guests themselves.

 

This will of course be the trial year for this and I am curious as to how this will work. I don’t think I will make it mandatory, but I will be selling it up to everyone I meet in the same way I sell TH2 to new people. The name-tag is something so simple but has the chance to let guests invest a little more in the social aspect of Thanksgiving 2 and hopefully make that as enjoyable as the food aspect.

Polar Palooza, 2 weeks and counting!

It is now just over 2 weeks out from Polar Palooza '13. I am done my research and just about done my prep work. I wanted to tell you what I came up with and how many improvements will be enacted this year.

The biggest update is one I talked about last week. The updating of my menu. Last year I had around 40 drinks available divided into 6 categories. This year I now have 5 cocktail categories each with 12 drinks, and 1 "Shots" section with 13 choices.

• Classic- Your martini, Bloody Mary, Kamikaze and Obituary. I went very old on some choices. Very few of these are sweet.
• Tropical- Each one has a fruity taste, and more on the sweeter side
• Sexy - These just have dirty names. Flavor is all over the place.
• Dessert- A lot of cream based drinks, and definitely sweet.
• Modern- This is my catch all. I did try to find drinks that were created recently
• Challenge Shots- 13 shots. half good tasting, half not so good. I'm trying to come up with a dice aspect to this section. (Shot Roulette?)

In the 60 menu choices this year 40 of them are new from last year. The 20 I kept from last year were all ordered multiple times. I realized about halfway thru the night last year that my menu may have been too unrecognizable to the novice cocktail drinker. I attempted to fix this in 3 ways. 1. Remove the drinks no one tried because they sounded not tasty, 2. Add a few well known cocktails to help ease everyone in and 3. Create a mini-menu for people to read.
 
Since I am not a pro at the noble art of bartending, I do not have these drinks memorized. I will be using cheaty cards all night. These cards make the drink assembly very simple, but last year I noticed a problem. If someone came up to me and asked "What's in a Walk Me Down?" I would have to shuffle thru my cards and read it off to them. This is bad because it stops me from doing whatever I'm doing and creates a back-up. I believe I have fixed this by creating the mini-menu. I have printed out 2 copies of the entire menu on card stock paper and had it laminated. Each page is 1 of the sub-groups and has all 12 drinks listed with the main alcohols and mixers. Each drink also has a clever witticism, or movie/TV quote or reference. If even half of the references are picked up on I will be amazed. I'm hoping this will help streamline the choice making.by putting more information into the guests hands. I am hoping this will work in the way I'm expecting. If nothing else it has the possibility of making people quote movies I like. 

The non-drink menu related updates include: the decorating of the bar area, several new liquors to taste, and the incredible technology of . . . bottle pourers, also known as a spout for the bottles. I went as an ewok from "Return of the Jedi" this past Halloween. I fixed the costume I used last year (an ewok) and I thought it would be neat to bring the head with me. I figure if I have a talking point hanging nearby it can start some conversations. It's no Christmas tree, but it is a decoration. When I started doing the drink research a few new liqueurs kept popping up. Galliano, Yukon Jack, and Aperol. The names of the drinks intrigued me, and they all received good reviews. I figured it couldn't hurt to try them out. Lastly, in what will probably make me a little more competent 'tender is the purchase of pourer spouts for the bottles. I won't look or feel like a chimp who has to open and close all of the bottles. Bottom line, I am hoping to make less of a mess. 

Overall, I have kept the ideas I used last year the same, but with some minor tweaking I am hoping to have more fun than last year, and see many colorful drinks in many new hands this year. Wish me luck.

Polar Palooza Preperation!

I’m taking a break from TH2 talk to share what I have been doing to prepare for my second stint as . . . The Bartender! 

What’s a Polar Palooza you may be asking? Well, it’s a an annual gathering thrown by our friend Quinton. It is a night gathering with a party club atmosphere. Lot’s of dancing, drinking and eating to be done.  It’s located where my wife and I got married in PA and you would never know it’s the same location. Quinton is able to completely transform his cabana area into an enclosed warm party room. It is amazing. This is the 3^rd Polar Palooza, but only the second that I have gotten to broaden my cocktail knowledge base. The first year I made Pad Thai on site for everyone to eat. I think 80% of it was eaten, so I take that as a success. Last year though I was asked to be the bartender and I won’t lie, I was pretty thrilled. Not only do I get a prominent role, but I get to participate in a party in the way I like best: 

• I get to be active the whole night.
• I get to stay in one place.
• I had short bits of quiet time
• If someone wants to talk, they have to come to me.

Because I didn’t blog last year I will explain what I did to prepare. While I am proficient in cooking for large groups, I have virtually zero bartending knowledge or experience. I have a general interest in mixed drinks, but I knew I had to do some research and then come up with a plan. My breakthrough happened when I came up with the menu idea. I created a menu of 50 drinks that I could make cheat cards for and not have to put them all to memory. With these 50 drinks available I would not be subjected to having to ask everyone “What’s in the drink you just ordered?” which is embarrassing. Also, between what is at Quinton’s home and what I bought for this event at Total Wine we do not have a full bar by any means. Without a strict menu I would have had to turn down people’s drink orders because we didn’t have St. Germain, or Single MaltScotch. The menu I came up with had the 50ish drinks split into several groups:

• Classic: Classic Martini, Stone Fence, Harvey Wallbanger
• Exotic:Blue Hawaiian, Swamp Thing, Acapulco Zombie
• Romantic:Wedding Cake, sex on the Beach, Happily Ever after
• Modern: Amaretto Sunrise, Walk Me Down. Mint Martini
• Dessert: Cookie Monster, Fried Banana Sandwich,Butter Slide
• Oddball: Bacon Martini,Bill Clinton, Dragon's Breath

Since I was busy for virtually all of the night, I think it worked out pretty well.

I also brought my very first infused vodka, 100 Proof Bacon. I’d like to thank the brave souls who tried it with me. It had a very smoky bacony flavor that transitioned straight into burn. A couple people even came back for seconds. Amazing.

This year I will be making a few changes/additions to the menu and my prep. I am bringing my Ewok mask from Halloween to hang up near me to create a theme for my area, and I want to show it off. I am renaming my bar to Wickett’s Watering Hole. I have found around 45 additional drinks that I want to incorporate into my menu from last year and remove 10-15 of the lesser requested drinks from last year. I even found a few Sci-Fi/fantasy drinks to help push my theme. I am hoping that I can write all 70-80 drinks on the current menu.

The 6 categories I had last year will be getting a bit of a make-over too. I think it would be boring for the drinking public to see the same 40 drinks as last year. First, I am going to be changing the Romantic category to Sexy this year because the date is in March as opposed to nearer Valentine’s Day like last year. Second, I am adding a Challenge Shot section. I am hoping that some courageous people will try some of the really off-the-wall shots I‘ve found. Thirdly, I am removing the Oddball category from the menu. I'm going to disperse the drinks to the other 5 categories.The overall theme to this year’s gathering is “Lucky 13”. I have found a few “13”, “lucky”, or “unlucky” themed cocktails to go with my minor theme of Sci-Fi/Fantasy. Finally, I will be making a small trip back to Total Wine to pick up a few odd and ends.

I am looking forward to unleashing some of these drinks on the crowd and helping to spread the social lubricant. Will be fun.

P.S.M.U. not the School, but the Unit

The creation of the PSMU or Personal Single Meal Unit may be the greatest thing I've created that doesn't have a number associated with it and/or isn't alive. As modest as that may sound I believe it is the truth.

 Unless you were with me around the end of November of last year you are probably wondering what the heck is a PSMU. Let me take you back several months.
::Fade in, at my work cube::
I was sitting at work at lunch going over my shopping list for TH2.5 and I realized I wasn't quite sure if I would have enough food. Anyone who has seen my near the end of November knows I get a bit antsy about this. You would think from previous years I wouldn't have this issue. Well, I thought what if I had some number I could shoot for. If you check around the web you can find out that for Thanksgiving 1 you should buy a turkey based on about 1 pound of turkey per person. For all you future TH2 party throwers let me warn you. There is no goose calculator, no ox-tail stew calculator. So what should I do? I should come up with my own system of course!

Since TH2 is an all day event I had to do some math. I figured if I had 60 people (I was being optimistic there) and they would eat 2 servings of a main dish. Whether the main dish is a a few slices of turkey or a goose leg or even half of a quail doesn't matter. Simple math says 60 people multiplied by 2 meals equals 120 PSMU's. 120 portions of the main dish would be needed, nice and simple. 120 seems like a lot of food at first, but once I figured that each fried turkey would yield around 20 PSMU each and since I would have 2 fried turkeys, that's already 40 PSMU's with just 2 dishes. I'm sure you're asking "How did you decide that each turkey is 20 PSMU's?" Over the last 10 years I have carved so many turkeys I have a pretty good grasp on how many chunks of food you end up with. For example here is a 14 pound turkey: 2 wings, 2 legs, 2 thighs, then each breast gets sliced into around 7 thick slices each. 2+2+2+2+7+7=20 PSMU's The unit is an average. Some people will eat a whole leg while some will only eat a few small slices. There is the key, know your food and know how you would carve/slice/serve it.

Liquid PSMU's were much more difficult for me to figure out. I decided this past year that I want a large beer selection at all TH2 gatherings from here on out. Thankfully beer, soda  and juice boxes come in single serve containers. The way I figured out drink servings was a little different than the food. I started with 60 people again, but (get ready for an incredible leap of logic here) the longer someone is at a place, the more that person will drink. Since I wanted to have the maximum amount of drinkable items I had to use the full 60 people and the full 12 hours of time I had allotted for the party. Again this math is based on my observances and past history. I figured 5 drinks per 8 hours. A "drink" in this case refers to any of the following: 1 beer bottle, i glass of wine, 1 juice box, 1 glass of water, 1 can of soda, or 1 cocktail. So 1 person over 12 hours = 8 drinks. 8 x 60 = 480 Liquid PSMU's for the event. I won't lie, this is the one place I got overly concerned with before the event. Thanks to some of my friends, my wife and Taco Bell I managed to avoid a mini breakdown in the Total Wine in Delaware. I should have trusted in my PSMU math because at the end of the night of TH2.5 I had quite a bit of a surplus of drinks (I had 55 people come, not 60).

For the very first event to use the new PSMU calculations I think it went incredibly well. I ended up with considerably fewer leftovers than the last 3 years, and everyone had a full belly.

A Quarter Year Full of Fun

This year marks an oddly active social schedule for a few weeks. I had New Year’s Eve event, the Super Bowl, and coming up soon, St. Patrick’s Day, the Polar Palooza, and finally Easter. I’m going to look at what I made/brought versus what I am going to make and test. This is part of a new strategy of year round TH2 thinking. 

One month into 2013 and I have already I missed a couple opportunities to make a test dish this year's TH2. New Year’s Eve we (my wife and I) brought a mixed case of good beer to the gathering we went to. In hindsight,  I would have liked to have made a test dish for the upcoming Superfun. A German Bread would have been a good  choice. The recipes I have for the breads are on the sweeter sides, and heavyish. There were a few desserts, but none that were bread-like, mostly cookies and cake. I'm going to blame food fatigue for just bringing the beer.Sometimes, even I like to just sit at a party.

For the Super Bowl of Games Event I had Feb. 3rd, I made a smoked brisket and grilled buffalo wings. I know people love the brisket, but I won’t be making either of these things for TH2.6 because they aren’t “on theme”. I have decided that this year I’m going to increase the themed side dishes and remove some of the less popular sides I have made in the past. I didn't experiment because I sent out the Anyvite before I came up with my whole year thinking. If I had to do it again, I would have made several German sausages. 

I now have the “birthday day” at work soon, and I think it’s time to start using these days for all they are worth.  I have about 2 weeks to prepare something. The food that is brought in has to sit out for 8 hours. This severely limits what I can make. I do not want to bring in a crock pot or just cut up some cured meats. A dessert or a dry side dish, or maybe one of the breads I talked about earlier. I am fairly detached from my co-workers tastes, but if most of what I bring is eaten I think I'll have a starting opinion.

The Polar Palooza is in early March. I had planned on making something simple, chili. Now, I need to figure out which German dish I am going to try out and then have to explain what it is to 40 people that night. The best dishes for these outdoor all night events are items in a crock pot. The last time I was at a Palooza I made a 2.5X batch of Boeuf bourguignon. If I can find something that the German people make that is along these lines I will bring this. I made a mistake foodwise at last years Polar Palooza. The Crock Pot will fix this.

St. Patrick’s Day is not as of now a party at home day. Last year we did a mini-pub crawl in Phoenixville. Maybe I will make something just for me that day. A German dish with potatoes maybe, or some other root vegetable. A nice belly filler to prepare for the walk around town.

Finally, Easter is March 31st this year. This is my first real shot at making a big bold dinner-type dish. As of right now I have no clue what I would make. I may sniff through my Amish/ Early Pennsylvanian cookbooks for an idea. As I get closer to each of these days, I'll keep you up to date too.