Mystery Murderer Dinner Party

Each year I try to do something different for my birthday, of course, this year was no expection.  I wanted to do a mystery murderer themed party for my birthday for a long time.  This year, I was able to make it with help from my friends and family, I was one happy birthday girl!

My friend had a mystery murderer party few years ago for her birthday.  She kept most of the materials and I borrowed the materials from her.  She and her husband were helping me to plan the party since they had experience of what we should do.  

For decoration, I had started thinking of how to decorating my party about a month before the party. I set few themed colors first (red, black, gold and white).  And work around with those colors and added little details to match the 1940s theme. Luckily, the themed colors at my house are red and little black, so I could easily reuse some of the decoration stuffs and frames from home and repurposed them.  We also created a photo booth and some photo props for pictures.  Everyone had a great time of taking pictures of the photo props I made.   

For desserts, I made few different desserts for the party, including donut holes and smore bites and of course cupcakes.  They were so yummy and great for us to walk around to communicate with other characters to find out who the murderer was.  I also made some little tags for each desserts, so people know what they were eating.

For food and drinks, we order Italian food from a local Italian restaurant.  Their price was very reasonable and food was great.  We also sticked with wines and old fashioned drinks the whole night.  We had two speical cocktails, Bee's Knees and Old Fashioned.  For non-alcohol beverage, we made cucumber rosemary lemon chiller; it was so refreshing!

I am so happy that most of my friends dressed up for their parts too.  They made the party even more memoriable than it could be. 

Here are some more pictures:

Found this old newspaper picture and a prescription for alcohol drinking online. 
Yup, you needed to obtain a prescription for drinking back to the 1940s.

My boot camp buddies=)

Another prescription I found online

Cucumber roseymary lemon chiller

Decroations on the dessert table

Posing with the photo props

My Asian gang

I love the setting=)

The boys in 1940s style

Our dessert table

smore bites

Autumn, Moon Cakes and Lanterns (Part I)

I could not believe that I have been living in the States for 11 years.  I miss my family every once in a while, but those traditional Chinese festivals make me miss them more than usual.  One of my favorite traditional Chinese festivals is the "Mid-Autumn Festival" (Moon Festival).  Here is a short summary about Mid-Autumn Festival from Wikipedia:

The Mid-Autumn Festival is held on the 15th day of the eighth month in the Chinese calendar, which is in September or early October in the Gregorian calendar. It is a date that parallels the autumnal equinox of the solar calendar, when the moon is at its fullest and roundest. The traditional food of this festival is the mooncake, of which there are many different varieties.

The Mid-Autumn Festival is one of the few most important holidays in the Chinese calendar, the others being Chinese New Year and Winter Solstice, and is a legal holiday in several countries. Traditionally on this day, Chinese family members and friends will gather to admire the bright mid-autumn harvest moon, and eat moon cakes and pomelos under the moon together.

Pomelos (Imagine from Google)

Star fruits (Imagine from Google)

Traditional style mook cakes (Imagine from Google)

Water Caltrops,  (Imagine  from Cheap Ethnic Eatz)

 

Imagine from Cheap Ethnic Eatz

Imagine from Google

When I was younger, I didn't feel so excited about this festival.  Until several years ago, I was driving alone in the dark and saw the FULL and BIG moon in front of me; then I realized how much I miss my family, how many Mid-Autumn Festival family dinner I have absented since I came to the States, and the great old time we had with my grandmom, my parents, my uncles and aunts and all my cousins.

We usually gathered at my grandmom's house for a family dinner first.  Then, we headed to the rooftop and hung out there.  The kids (me, my sister and my cousins) would carry the brightly lit paper lanterns (sometimes battery operated one) and chasing each other (just do what kids usually do=p).  The adults would talk and eat the traditional Chinese food for Mid-Autumn Festival, such as steamed taro with sugar or soy sauce, star fruits, pomelos, a bull head look alike thingy (English name:  Water Caltrop, find out what they are and how they taste like from here) and of course Moon Cake.  Those memory seems so far away from me, but so close to my heart.  

In the next post:  I will tell you:

what is mook cake? 
How do they taste like? 
What kind of flavors they have? 
What is Mrs. G's favorite? 

So stay tuned.