Dinner guests and an insane asylum

The incident of the Devil's Eggs. No, not deviled eggs, but the devil's eggs, because that is what they were. Let me back up...

Over Thanksgiving weekend, Jon and I decided it would be lots of fun to throw a holiday dinner party. We invited 11 people, 6 were able to attend (and thank goodness for that because we don't have enough silverware for 11 extra people). Anyway, the party was on. We had one vegetarian guests so we planned our menu accordingly.

As the day drew closer I got increasingly crazy. CRAZY, I tell you. Crazy. I have, um, issues when people come over to the house. I worry that no one will show up. I worry that the house isn't clean enough. I worry that the food won't be good or won't be done in time or won't...whatever. It doesn't matter. I more than once uttered the phrase, "I hate everything! Let's cancel the party!" Thankfully, Jon is much more level-headed.

We had originally wanted to make endive BLT bites for an appetizer. As we thought more on it we decided it was a bit too complicated and so we changed our menu to include deviled eggs. Delicious. Classic. Retro. Yum! I make great deviled eggs. Seriously. So I figured it would be a pretty easy appetizer to whip up. The first batch was cooked up on Saturday and put in the refrigerator until Sunday morning. We tried peeling the eggs but they would not peel. Not at all. It was bad. So I made a second batch and tried to peel them while they were warm, but it was still really hard. I don't know what the problem was! Of the TWENTY eggs I cooked, 8 turned out OK. So I split them in half, put the yolks in a separate bowl, and put everything in the refrigerator while I worked on something else. Alas, when I pulled the eggs out of the fridge, they were frozen!! Ugh. The incident of the devil's eggs.

(This will go down in legend alongside the Spite Potatoes, but that is another story.)

****

After all the madness and worry, our little dinner party went off without a hitch. Mixing old friends and new, we had great conversation and lots of laughs. There were no deviled eggs, but the roasted potatoes with sour cream, and cheese with salami and crackers were more than enough as appetizers. We made duck-and-chicken pot pies (and one vegetarian pot pie!), roasted asparagus, tossed salad and homemade challah (it is Hanukkah, after all). Red velvet cupcakes rounded out the meal.

I hope everyone had a good time. I told Jon after everyone had left that I hoped the next time we have guests over I wouldn't get so crazy. Then we both laughed, because that will never happen. I will always get crazy.