Image courtesy of nirot  FreeDigitalPhotos.net

     I’m going to steer a bit off topic with this week’s blog because, well, it’s my blog and I can do that.  

     I come from a family of creatives, each in our own different way.  My daughter just turned 13 yesterday and we are having a party for her this coming Saturday.  The theme she chose for her party is music.  Like me, music is a huge part of her life and our radios, mp3 players, laptops, nooks, tvs, or phones are constantly blaring out something.

     My mother, The Crazy Craft Lady, as she has been dubbed, took on the task of coming up with the invitations, decorations, cake and goodie bags.  As always, she thought outside of the box and came up with some unique ideas that my daughter was extremely happy with.

Image courtesy of Simon Howden  FreeDigitalPhotos.net

     Now, the rest is up to me.  You would think coming up with a menu wouldn’t be too difficult, but I hate doing the same old tired thing.  Sure it is a bbq party, but does that mean I have to stick to the usual stuff.  I’m going to do the burgers and hotdogs for the start of the party, but I’m not satisfied with the usual chicken, ribs, steak, kebobs, potato salad and macaroni salad that we have every year at some bbq or another.

     For some reason, dessert ideas come quite naturally to me and we have come up with a few musically inspired ideas for the snacks, but I need to feed people.  Looking for inspiration, I did what I always do; I took to the internet.  What I found, a big fat NOTHING!  Thanks, but I don’t want to feed people Elvis’ fatty sandwiches and clog up their arteries.  Has no one ever before done a music themed party?  And if they have, have they never thought to carry the theme to the menu?

     I LOVE theme parties!  And a big part of throwing a themed party is to have fun and unique food.  For instance, take my Halloween party last year.  Dinner consisted of Mummy meatloaves, Swamp creature mac and cheese and bone shaped bread sticks.  The snack spread: ghost shaped cream cheese covered toast, pretzel and fruit by the foot witches’ broom sticks, brain shaped pink tembleque, frozen fluff covered banana ghosts on a stick, eyeball cake pops and candy corn infused caramel popcorn balls.  I had a few other ideas, but not enough time to execute them so I still have a few tricks up my sleeve for my next Halloween party, whenever that might be.

I need a few!
Image courtesy of Stuart Miles  FreeDigitalPhotos.net

     So here I am, trying to put together a grocery list so that I can have everything delivered tomorrow and prepared by Friday and I still have no clue what I’m doing.  I think my next step will be to go through my daughter’s favorite songs and see if any of them can offer some inspiration.  There’s nothing like a little time crunch to get the creative juices flowing.  Hmm, speaking of juice…