The 1969 Party (also not a cake)

On March 8, 2009, my parents celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary. being that this is quite a feat in my book, my brothers and I thought it necessary to throw some sort of bash. One afternoon, while driving home from work, it hit me: why have a regular old party when you can make people dress up and eat foods that haven't been popular in 40 years? So that's what we did. We threw a 1969 theme party and it was a ton of fun. There was fondue (cheese and chocolate), rolled sandwiches, a jello mold, herring-wrapped sweet pickles (a surprising popular choice), and many other c.1969 treats. It turned out to be an immense success- one friend brought a guitar and sang angry anti-war songs, another rewrote the lyrics to Cole Porter's D'Lovely to the theme of D'Chessman (my father's name is Dan), my sister-in-law did a version of the Not-So-Newlywed Game (which my father later acknowledged was "far less scary" than he expected it to be). Most of the recipes came out of some old cookbooks of my grandmother's and let's be honest, are you really ever going to make blender mushroom butter rolled sandwiches? If you want any, just ask.
So here it is in all it's glory, some food, some people, some fun:

Not so newlyweds - Newlyweds


Eating the cake now and then...


My brother Dave and me and my Sister-in-Law Holly and Brother Josh
(at this point I guess I should explain that my father got married during the two weeks in 1969 when it was deemed fashionable to wear turtlenecks with tuxes, so that's what he and the groomsmen wore. The fathers-in-law refused and he now acknowledges that they were correct)

Not-so-Newlywed Game (What's your spouses most annoying habit?)

One table with things on sticks

That table cloth is a remnant from the fabric store, I can't wait to make a skirt out of it :-)
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more things on sticks

Even more things on sticks (in case we were wondering when the destruction of the rainforests really began...)

Crushed pineapple, lime jello, sour cream, what could go wrong (actually pretty tasty if you could get past the texture)
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Curried nuts

Our bar (another fabric remnant, I think this one might stay a table cloth)

And authentic Legal Seafoods t-shirt c.1969

some signs I made


Grandma Ruth's afghan put to good use

At this point, I just want to take a moment to explain to some people (Anne), that yes, obviously my friends and family, and anyone else who reads this blog, is very capable of figuring out that a party, William-Sonoma spatulas, a baby blanket, etc. are not cakes. But the name of the blog is Cakes, cakes and more cakes, so I was covering my butt, you know, so I can't be sued for libel or something. Or I was just being clever, which is much more likely :-)