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Saturday, May 25, 2013

Graduation Party Food--Dilemmas and Solutions

It is always tough to plan a party where you have no idea how many people will come, how much they will want to eat, and how to have something that goes beyond the usual chips and dip and a large sheet cake to celebrate an event.  There are many parties going on sumultaneously, so there is that added layer of complexity.  We have done a number of different things, but this year, in deference to our graduate, we did sandwiches and Mediterranean salads.
My graduate is a big sandwich fan--sometimes I think it is about the only thing that he eats, but that would be an exaggeration.  We did composed sanwiches rather than a deli tray for several reasons--one is that in a two-hour party, time is of the essense.  We chose to have ours over the lunch hour, so the possibility exists that people would actually want to eat lunch.  Whenever I am faced with a deli tray, I do one of two things.  I either take my time and compose the sandwich that I want--spreading the various spreads
and carefully building the ultimate sandwich--all of which occurs at the expense of the ever-growing line behind me.  The alternative is that I pitle things up on a piece of bread to be assembled later in a less than satisfactory mode.  So making the sandwiches ahead of time might decrease the choices that one person might have, but it allows for making an ideal flavor combination, a settling of the flavors into the bread, and a swifter pace for the line.

We used two sandwich books for ideas: 'Wichcraft:Craft a Sandwich into a Meal by Tom Colccio and Nancy Silverton's Sandwich Book.  I recommend getting some tried and true ideas before venturing out on your own.

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