IDEAS FOR A BIRTHDAY PARTY
Girl, that’s a lot of work! Now is the time to rope in some more willing friends. 😛
I would suggest you have a bread table which can serve as starters. This is great for an informal type of setup. These days you get such a wonderful variety of breads at your local supermarket that it really does not have to be boring at all. And you order it all two days ahead of time and just go and pick it up.
You can arrange it very nicely with some props, nice tablecloth, baskets, etc. E.g French loaf, nice rolls, croissants, cheese muffins, health/seed loaf, cocktail rolls.
Also a variety of crackers. Serve some nice cheeses, jams, cream cheese and good homemade patés with the bread.
Mains: Serve something which is easy to prepare ahead of time and reheat in the hall’s kitchen.
The easiest is one dish, e.g. any type of potjie dish (huge choice here), Malay curry, Breyani, Bobotie, Lasagne, Chicken ala King, good homemade pie.
Serve with rice or potatoes and maybe something like pumpkin pie.
Baked puddings can be done a day or two in advance and is also easy to serve with custard.
Stalwarts like Malva pudding, Cape brandy pudding, carrot pudding, milktart, saucy choc pudding, lemon pudding are always popular and appreciated.
Maybe not the most exciting menu, but the easiest to execute. In the end, people enjoy a good plate of food, especially the men, without too many “weird” things on the plate! 🙂
Put the food in foil or other type containers which you can put in the oven and warming drawer to reheat, so you can utilise this space as well . If the rest are in pots, bring along some little gas stoves for reheating. 70 is a lot of people to feed. Microwave also handy of course. You can stretch food m u c h further if you and sis dish up for the people at the main meal. Then your portions will work out fine. Another idea is to reheat on the braai over the coals if you can get some men to do this for you and everything is in potjies perhaps. The guys of course love this, they can stand around the fire whoohoo!!
Louise Groenewald