Broad’s 30th Birthday

A few weekends ago Broad turned the big 3-0. She’s finally an adult! Beard wanted to do something super special for her but Broad is kinda hard to surprise and his idea, a Brunch party, had a lot of moving parts so a surprise party was out of the question. She’s also a planner and loves to throw parties, so he definitely needed her help.  But, Beard did still end up throwing a few surprises in. One was flying in one of her best friends and bridesmaids, Chang from Texas for the weekend. Well, he told Broad about it ahead of time but it was still a surprise. Then on Friday evening, we went to one of Broad’s favorite CLE restaurants Chinato. She knew we were going there but didn’t know a bunch of her friends would be waiting there for her with a glass of wine already at the table.

Back to the party idea. Beard came up with the idea of throwing a brunch potluck party. Broad LOVES brunch…like really, really loves brunch. She loves the food, drinks, everything about it.  Beard made a Facebook invite so people could post what they were bringing.

FOOD
We made: Goat Cheese Stuffed Artichoke Bottoms (recipe here), Cheesy Bacon Wrapped Puff Pastry Twists (recipe here), Veggie Quiche, Buffalo Chicken Dip (a staple at every single party we have), and Fried Chicken to go with the waffles.

Guests brought: fruit, charcuterie, waffles, breakfast casserole, chocolate chip banana nut bread, butter pecan ice cream, boyfriend cookies. Also bottles and bottles of champy!

Ice Cream Cake: Broad does not have a very big sweet tooth. She prefers savory over sweet almost 100% of the time. But if she’s going to eat cake it better be an ice cream cake. If its going to be an ice cream cake it better be from our favorite ice cream joint Mason’s Creamery (future post about them coming soon). Beard worked with Helen & Jesse to come up with a cake that combined Broad’s favorite flavors. The final product included brownie crusted bottom, salted caramel ice cream, whipped nutella frosting and the cake was surrounded by pretzels on the sides. To say this was the best cake ever is an understatement.

We were so excited and so overwhelmed that we forgot to take pics of all the delicious food besides the ice cream cake and the beautiful charcuterie boards.

DRANKS
Broad set up a mimosa and bloody mary bar. Seriously, just look how gorgeous this looks! Broad was pretty proud of this set up. You already know how much Broad loves bubbles but she also loves bloody marys just as much (possibly the next Broad Banter post).

Bloody Marys: Broad made her homemade super secret bloody mary mix and had all the fixins’ including spicy green beans, pickled okra, an array of stuffed olives from Rita’s at West Side Market, and cheese and meat skewers.

Mimosas: We had many different types of bubbles. Cava, brut, rosé, and all pair well with juice, of which we had four different type. Broad does not like plain orange juice so we went a little different with orange pineapple (so good), peach, pear and passion fruit. We also had blueberries, strawberries, rasberries and rosemary. Broad saw on a blog somewhere about adding rosemary and it is delicious. Definitely did more for the aroma than the taste, but it did make a difference and just looked fancy.

Beer: Of course Beard made Broad a special birthday beer. Last year was the first time he made one specifically for her, so she let her name it.  First word out of her mouth, like a child, was ‘kitty!’  So, in order to not be completely made fun of when he told people the name, and since it was going to be a saison (which originated in Wallonia, a French-speaking area of France), he named it Chaton Saison.  To make it a bit fruity, Beard added fresh blood orange zest and juice.  For this version, Chaton Saison Part Deux, he added passion fruit pulp*.  It came out to be around 6% and was light, delicious and full of flavor. It was a huge hit at the party and about 4 gallons were drank over the course of the day.

Mini CT straws: Our very great friend Christa could not be here for the party and was devastaed. She requested that we honor her presence by constructing mini CT sticks.

It was a much longer day than expected. People started coming over at 11 am and we expected people to leave early evening. But most people stayed and we played champ drinking games, headed down to Red Rose our local dive bar and ended the night around 1 am which is pretty late for us.

All in all, this was the best 30th birthday I could ask for.  I had a (nearly) surprise guest from out of town, a surprise dinner with my closest friends, and what basically turned our to be an all day brunch with my favorite things and favorite people. If you ever plan to throw a brunch party, here are our pro-tip takeaways:

• Prep as much food as possible the evening before.  We prepped just about everything we could the night before and we were still getting stuff out to the tables as people walked in the door.
• You can never have enough champs.  We had a few bottles, people brought bottles, and someone still had to walk down to the store to grab more.  We had around 20 people at our place and ended up going through probably a dozen bottles.  When in doubt, buy an extra bottle.  Or five.  Champs, champs, champs.
• Be specific and persistent if making it a potluck brunch.  You don’t want someone bringing pancakes and another bringing waffles; or 5 quiches.  We ended up making list of ideas and then just let people pick from them.
• Plasticware/paper only.  No use in having to do a bunch of dishes when you’re buzzed or hungover.