Wacky Lunch

For some time, perhaps even longer than a year, Blythe has had the idea to have a "wacky lunch."  She got the idea from a book she read.  You have a menu without actual food items listed, just a code.  Your diners have to order blind, with no idea what they are going to get to eat, or what they'll be able to eat with.  The idea has been simmering in Blythe's brain for months, and she's been begging me to let her and Brandt do it.  No wacky lunch happened last year, so Blythe was adamant that it take place this year.

We finally got it on the schedule for today.  Blythe invited friends, Brandt invited friends, and they went to work preparing.  First off, a coded menu, with foods color-coded.  I pointed out that is wasn't super wacky to have white be rice, orange be carrots, red be strawberries, and clear be water.  Choices were good, but to be wacky, it shouldn't be so rigid.  Blythe worked hard to make menus for everyone so we couldn't change those up, but we did move items around.  The final code looked like this:

white: carrot sticks
brown: strawberries
orange: purple mashed potatoes
red: yellow pepper
green: roll
purple: rice
yellow: beans
beige: apple
red: broccoli
golden: water
white: orange juice
orange: apple juice
clear: milk
gray 1: spoon
gray 2: butter
gray 3: knife
yellow: jam
red: fork

Brandt prepared to be the entertainment portion of lunch, coming up with exciting magic tricks and jokes.  He showed the girls the "mouse" he found in the house, a cordless mouse for the computer.  He did card tricks and slight of hand, and I think, in actual performance, it went pretty well. 

Today, the actual day of the lunch, I helped prepare food, but I was hands-off about other things.  The kids set the table withe a scrunched up tablecloth and various strange things for the centerpiece.  They put weird items randomly around the yard, and set up music to play during the meal.  Richard Ledford made Blythe a CD of wacky songs, a fortuitous musical selection with great songs like "Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini" and "One Eyed One Horned Flying Purple People Eater."  The children also dressed in a wacky way, with Blythe putting a whisk in her hair and sporting purple lipstick that smelled funny, and Brandt wearing his robe inside out, bottle-cap lens
glasses, and a hair band. 

When diners Lilly and Emma Bradford, Ellen Mason, Addie Lepinski, Paul and Kevin Moreland, and Sam Olyer arrived, Blythe took them through the gate and into the backyard so that they wouldn't see what was for lunch or the special code.  Brandt and Blythe took orders, just like real servers, then brought in orders for me to put together.  The kids could choose five foods, a drink, and three extras which were the utensils and butter and jam.  Everyone got funny plates of food, some chose no utensils and so looked at their plate wondering how to eat, and everyone was tricked by "golden" under drinks being water.  We served lots of water. 

 

There was much questioning and laughter, as well as a bit of shrieking at the whole silly event.  I'm fairly confident there was even some eating going on.  The children were pleased with the wacky lunch; Blythe said it was "Awesome!"