Oscars Dinner Party survives in the California suburbs

This year's Oscars award show was pretty unmemorable with the exception of Lady Gaga's surprisingly tame but talented Sound of Music tribute. The BEST part of the Oscars was the dinner my friends Amara and Arlen helped put together to keep the #oscardinnerparty tradition alive for the third consecutive year. With only three days notice, they managed to pull together a coma-inducing spread inspired by this year's Best Picture nominees.

I've received a lot of comments on Instagram asking to be invited to my Oscars parties, and as always, I believe the more, the merrier! I encourage everyone to turn the snooze-fest awards show into something fun by coming up with creative and delicious dishes. It's easier to do than you think (easier if you actually watch the films) and proof of this is I thought of Adult Lunchables for Boyhood the day of the Oscars and spent less than $15 to execute. The magic is in the story behind the dish--for Adult Lunchables, I had 12 crackers, salami and cheese on the plate to represent the 12 years it took to make Boyhood and Arlen made lobster-stuffed steak for American Sniper because that is what the Army served soldiers in Afghanistan every other week.

Whiplash was the only movie that wasn't represented since no one saw it before the Oscars; however, now that I've seen the movie, I think I'd take a container of cool whip, make a cylindrical ring around the container to look like a drum and drizzle red food coloring all over the top like blood and make churros to be drumsticks. See? It's easy.

Here's a recap of all the dishes:

 Until next year!

The 2nd Annual EPIC Oscars Dinner Party [PHOTOS]

Last year's Oscars Dinner Party was such a huge success that my friends and I had to do it again this year. The brief is simple, everyone has to bring a dish, dessert or drink inspired by a Best Picture nominee, which were: 

• American Hustle
• Captain Phillips
• Dallas Buyers Club
• Gravity
• Her
• Nebraska
• Philomena
• 12 Years a Slave
• The Wolf of Wall Street

This time, most of us actually watched the movies AND we had two weeks to plan (instead of a few days), so I had somewhat high expectations for the food. I wasn't disappointed. I was so impressed by my friends' creativity and cleverness--and if not that, their effort--that I'm going to give out awards for the Best Picture award-inspired dishes (see what I did there? INCEPTION.). Here are the winners:

Best Cinematography aka "Use of Instagram Filters" - Peter

Budweiser Tall Boys for Nebraska

Best Last-Minute-Inspired-by-the-Trailer Dish - Ben

Fugazi Fugasi Frisee Salad for The Wolf of Wall Street

Best "I work in Film" Inside Joke - Jason

Angel HAIR ACTING for American Hustle

Best Foreign Surprise - Fiorella and Diego

South American Hustle Empanadas for American Hustle

Best Drunken Munchies - Jared and Kristen

Somali Samosas for Captain Phillips

Best Movie Title Spin-Off - Rachel and Tim

Club House Sandwiches with Mustard & Mayo Syringes for Dallas Buyers Club

Best "I didn't watch the movie but want British Food" Dish - Sean and Zeny

Steak, Ale and Mushroom Pie for Philomena

Best Sugar High - Juno and Stephanie
Momofuku Milk Bar Crack Pies and Baggies of...

Confectioners Sugar! for The Wolf of Wall Street

Best Food for Movie Without Food (and Non-Astronaut Ice Cream Cop Out) - Alex

Moon Pies for Gravity

Most Ambitious Attempt - Hannah

Scarlet Velvet OS cakes for Her

Actual Best Picture Winner-Inspired Dessert - Jared

Warm Blackberry Crumble for 12 Years of Slave

Thank you to everyone who came and contributed. An Oscars dinner party is a great idea for any host who wants their guests to pass out before the Best Picture award is announced, if they haven't passed out already. My only complaint is I have to wait a full year for the next Oscars--what event could I do the next themed dinner party for?

The Most Epic Oscar Dinner Party, Two Months Later

I have been slacking on the blogging front and thought I'd make it up with overdue photos from probably the best themed dinner party my friends and I have thrown (and you know it's tough to beat the homemade pizza or meatball party)--the OSCAR BEST PICTURE THEMED DINNER POTLUCK!

The dinner brief: Come with a dish inspired by any of the following 2013 Oscar best picture nominees
Amour
Argo
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Django Unchained
Les Misérables
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Silver Linings Playbook
Zero Dark Thirty

But what this actually means is: bring something you want to eat and we'll figure out the correlation to one of the Best Picture nominees. We ended up with a diverse 10-course meal that would have made Wolfgang Puck jealous. Everything was delicious and surprisingly we made every dish work with a movie. Enough talking, here's the pics:

Silver Linings Playbook "Raisin Bran" 

Smitten Kitchen's Balsamic and Beer-braised Short Ribs with Parsnip Puree

Django Unchained 

Fried Chicken & (Eggo) Waffles

Argo

Tony Mendez's Secret Guac

Lincoln Logs

Homemade Hummus, Baba Ghanoush and Veggies

Zero Dark Thirty 

30 White Stuffed Mushrooms

 

Life of Pi

Vegetation Island Brussel Salad

Beasts of the Southern Wild

Hush Puppies

Django Unchained

Violently Delicious Mac and Cheese

Amour Red Velvet Cupcakes and, of course, Life of Pies

Result? Food coma lasting as long as the awards show itself.

My film expert friend Jason deserves all the credit for coming up with this theme two years ago and I'm glad we finally executed. Can't wait for next year!